redblueamerica.com

According to the National Center for Pay Equity, women’s earnings in 2006 were 76.9 percent of men’s, with the median full-time, year-round female employee earning just $32,515, compared to a median male earning of $42,261. But should we be outraged? No. And here’s why.

Women earn less largely because we have the luxury of decisions that men generally can only dream of. We work less hours in the average work week, we are more likely to take time off to have kids or care for aging parents, and we choose lower paying fields requiring less formal education. Oh, and we’re less far less likely to be killed at work, a little detail often neglected at the NCPE.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, men are much more likely to suffer fatal workplace injuries than women. According to 2006 BLS statistics, the most recent year available, 428 American women were killed on the job. Compare this with the 5,275 men who lost their lives. The reason: Men take more dangerous, laborious, and physically demanding jobs, and they are compensated heavily for taking such positions. According to the BLS, the most deadly fields for 2006 were those heavily dominated by men, including logging, mining, waste management, law enforcement, construction, and transportation projects.

Conversely, as the BLS statistics demonstrated, the fields with the lowest death rates, including education and social services, are female-dominated. Ultimately, the average man is more willing than the average woman to spend his days inside dark mines to extract coal.Act like a man and you’ll be compensated as one.