The Inequality in Numbers

The Inequality in Numbers Records show that male and female births are almost equal in number. But a study of mortality shows that the rate is higher for men than for women. This disparity is in evidence from early childhood to extreme old age. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica: “In general, the risk of death at any given age is less for females than for males.”2 The proportionately higher numbers of women in society can be traced to a variety of causes. For instance, when war breaks out, the majority of the casualties are men. In the First World War (191418) about 8 million soldiers were killed. Most of the civilians killed were also men. In the Second World War (1939-45) about 60 million people were either killed or maimed for life, most of them men. In the Iraq-Iran war alone (1979-1988), 82,000 Iranian women and about 100,000 Iraqi women were widowed. All in the space of ten years. Another drain on the availability of men in society is imprisonment. In the U.S., the most civilized society of modem times, no less than 1,300,000 people are convicted daily for one crime or another. A number