The Inequality in Numbers

of them-97% of whom are men-are obliged to serve lengthy prison sentences.3 The modern industrial system too is responsible for the lower proportion of men in society, death by accident having become a matter of daily routine in present times. There is no country in which accidents do not take place every day on the streets, in the factories and wherever sophisticated, heavy machinery is handled by human beings. In this modem industrial age, such accidents are so much on the increase that a whole new discipline has come into being-safety engineering. According to data collected in 1967, in that year a total of 175,000 people died as the result of accidents in fifty different countries. Most of these were men.4 In spite of safety engineering, casualties from industrial accidents have increased. For instance, the number of air accidents in 1988 was higher than ever before. Similarly, experimentation in arsenals continues to kill people in all industrialized countries, but the death toll is never made public. Here again, it is men who have the highest casualty rate. For reasons of this nature, women continue to outnumber men. This difference persists in even the most developed societies, e.g. in America. According