Data Point - what about workplace death inequality? - Granite Grok

Data Point – what about workplace death inequality?

workdeaths(H/T: AEIdeas)

Every year the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) publicizes its “Equal Pay Day” to bring public attention to the gender pay gap. “Equal Pay Day” this year fell on April 14, and allegedly represents how far into 2014 the average woman had to continue working to earn the same income that the average man earned last year. Inspired by Equal Pay Day, Iintroduced “Equal Occupational Fatality Day” in 2010 to bring public attention to the huge gender disparity in work-related deaths every year in the United States. “Equal Occupational Fatality Day” tells us how many years into the future women would have to work before they would experience the same number of occupational fatalities that occurred in the previous year for men.

It does show that talking about equal pay often doesn’t take into account the danger factor of the jobs that the different sex gravitate to.  And while most people will agree that equal skills, equal experience, and equal education should receive equal pay, what is not oft discussed is the differences in motivation, drive, and persistence.  Why?  IMHO, those things are much harder to quantify and thus, harder to compare.  Yet, they do have much to do with the compensation that one receives – not matter what the “least common denominator” arguers want to say. And another is the relative danger of a given job and the risk that someone is willing to accept.  Thus, the data tends to show the difference – will the equal pay folks start to demand not that women get paid more but that they take on more risk and put themselves into more dangerous positions and earn the same as the men in those riskier careers? Courtesy of CNN, is a list of the jobs with the biggest risk of fatalities (job, median pay, deaths / 100,000 workers):

  • Loggers – $33K, 91.3
  • Fisherman – $33K, 75
  • Pilots – $98K, 50.6
  • Roofers – $36K, 38.7
  • Sanitation workers – $22K, 33
  • Mining machine workers – $50K 26.9
  • Truck drivers – $27K, 22
  • Farmers – $69, 21.8
  • Power line workers – $58K, 21.5
  • Construction workers – $29K, 17.7

 

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