By Staff
Leada DeVaney, Hartselle Enquirer
Bad news if you're a person of the male variety in this state. According to the Alabama Department of Public Health, men in this state are more likely to die than women.
That's a rather odd statistic when you think about it, given the fact that death is one of life's few certainties, but apparently, men are a lot more certain than women.
Perhaps this is nature's way of evening things out, a sort of a cosmic armistice in the war between the sexes. It seems men may be better short-term fighters, but we women are in this for the long haul.
Just think – all these years we've heard that it's a man's world. It may be, but they have a shorter time to enjoy it, at least according to the Alabama Department of Public Health.
This whole concept put things on a more even playing field.
Take salaries, for example.
It's been said by experts that women make 43 cents on every dollar a man earns. That means if a man earns $100 for a day's work, a woman earns $43, even if they are doing the same job.
Let's say this man starts working at age 18 and retires at age 65, giving him 47 years of working life. Forty-seven years is 17,155 days. Subtracting weekends and an occasional holiday, let's say he will work 12, 417 days in his life. At $100 a day, he will earn $1,241,700 in his lifetime.
He will then retire, sit on his nest egg and then, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health, drop dead.
His female counterpart will live on, though on considerably less money.
Let's say she, too, started working at age 18, but because she will live longer, she can work until she is 72. This gives her 19,710 working days during her life. Substracting weekends and holidays, she will work16,989 days in her lifetime, giving her the grand total of $730,527.
But things still aren't even, you say?
Of course they are.
Remember – he died a long time ago.
She, on the other hand, lived on, making do with her 43 cents on the dollar for a lot longer time.
She will live on, maturing in old age and wisely saving her money she earned and, best of all, proving the Alabama Department of Public Health correct.
It seems this is Mother Nature's way of evening out the difference between the sexes. Sure, we women may be staring up at the glass ceiling, but it's better than pushing up daisies.
At least you can see the sunshine through a sheet of glass.