Equal Rights, Unequal Risks
Why gender parity is demanded in prestige fields but ignored in deadly ones.
The so-called gender equality paradox is most often discussed in the context of women in STEM. The paradox is this: in Nordic countries—where women enjoy the greatest degree of freedom and face the fewest institutional barriers—their representation in STEM fields is lower than in less egalitarian societies. Intuition would suggest the opposite. The explanation, supported by cross-cultural data, is that when survival pressures are reduced, individuals gravitate toward their intrinsic interests. On average, women favor people-oriented vocations, while men favor thing-oriented ones. Greater freedom amplifies, rather than erases, these divergences.
There is, however, a mirror image of this paradox that is rarely acknowledged: dangerous work.
Consider the professions with the highest fatality rates—logging, commercial fishing, roofing, construction, mining, oil extraction, waste collection, and frontline combat. Across cultures and political systems, these occupations are overwhelmingly male. In the United States, over 90 percent of workplace deaths involve men. The reasons are essentially the same as those invoked to explain STEM disparities:
Biological factors: Men are, on average, stronger and more risk-tolerant.
Vocational interests: Men are more inclined toward high-risk, physically demanding work, while women are more inclined to avoid it.
The freedom effect: As freedom of choice expands, women avoid these hazardous occupations with even greater consistency.
The paradox is symmetrical. Women tend to cluster away from hazardous, thing-oriented fields; men tend to cluster into them. Men are disproportionately represented at both extremes—dominating high-prestige, thing-oriented disciplines such as engineering and physics, as well as low-status, high-risk manual labor. Male variance is greater, with more men at both ends of the spectrum. Women, by contrast, concentrate more heavily in the middle, in occupations that are safer and more people-centered.
Here lies an uncomfortable asymmetry. Society demands gender balance in prestigious fields but exhibits little concern for balance in occupations that are dangerous, dirty, and deadly. No one calls for equal representation on oil rigs, in logging camps, or on roofing crews. We do not march for equality in the morgue.
The gender equality paradox is not a contradiction but rather a revelation about human variance. When individuals are freed from compulsion, men and women tend to make different average choices. Men more often pursue prestige and peril; women more often pursue safety and sociality. The greater the freedom a society affords, the more visible these differences become.
If one values equality of opportunity, then inequality of outcome must be accepted. If, on the other hand, one insists upon equality of outcome, coercion becomes necessary—and coercion invariably extracts its own price.