Equal Death Day’: May 3, 2030

Another unequal fact of life: Men are more likely to be killed on the job.

By The Editorial Board

April 8, 2019 6:36 p.m. ET

Activists, community leaders, union members and politicians gather on the steps of City Hall in New York to rally against pay disparity 

Last Tuesday was “Equal Pay Day.” This unofficial holiday was first declared in 1996 to protest the “wage gap” between the sexes. In the latest data, according to proponents, American women who work full time earned only 80 cents for each $1 earned by men. Hence, to catch up with a man’s pay from 2018, a woman must keep working until roughly April 2.

The problem with comparing this raw, aggregate data is well documented. Women on average go into lower-paying fields, such as education. Mothers are likelier than fathers to choose flexibility over career advancement. Men tend to work slightly more hours on the job.

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The “wage gap” crowd says these factors can’t account for the entirety of the difference. But even assuming they’re correct, then would they please stop citing the tendentious 80 cents figure? Resetting “Equal Pay Day” to fall on, say, Jan. 25 would be less dramatic, but much less dishonest.

And what about other ways the labor market is unequal? To illustrate one example, Mark Perry, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, has suggested “Equal Occupational Fatality Day.” The basic point is that, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, men in America are much more likely to be killed while working.

Fishery workers had the highest rate of fatal on-the-job injury in 2017: nearly 100 per 100,000 people. The industry is so small that the BLS doesn’t provide detailed data, but presumably most commercial fishermen were men. The second-most dangerous job was held by lumberjacks (and a few lumberjills, but 98% were male). Next were aircraft pilots (94% male), roofers (99%), garbagemen (88%), and so forth.

After running the numbers, Mr. Perry wrote last week: “The next ‘Equal Occupational Fatality Day’ will occur more than 11 years from now—on May 3, 2030. That date symbolizes how far into the future women will be able to continue working before they experience the same loss of life that men experienced in 2018 from work-related deaths.”

This increased risk no doubt shows up in men’s paychecks. Not all dangerous occupations, obviously, will get you rich. Logging workers average $42,340 a year. Still, that’s more than preschool and kindergarten teachers ($40,070), who are 98% female.

The broader point is that humanity is complicated. Millions of men and women make their own choices about which careers, jobs and family structures will work best for them. Who but a committed social engineer could demand that their median pay precisely match!