21.5: Other Risks

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Sex

Most of the risks here are well-known and easily avoidable. But lots of people don’t manage to avoid them. The two major sexual risks are various diseases, especially HIV, and unwanted pregnancies. At a very base level you can help mitigate these risks by using birth control and protection. Moving past the obvious though, you can work to reduce risks on a societal level. Supporting legislation and college policies that make access to protection and birth control cheap or free would go a long way to lowering your risks, as would providing better reproductive health options to women.

Love and Marriage

There is a very real risk that if you get married you will end up getting divorced. According to the US Census Bureau, the national marriage rate for 2018 was 16.6 and the divorce rate was 7.7. So, for every 1,000 people 16.6 of them were married and 7.7 divorced. Keeping in mind this counts people 15-year-old and over, and there aren’t a lot of 15-year olds getting married or divorced. It also is comparing divorces to total population, so a lot of those people not getting divorced were also not married. When looking at marriage data alone, we can see that the average length of a marriage is 8 years. The likelihood of a first marriage ending within 5 years is 20% and within ten years is 33%. Despite these figures, few people think that they will be among the casualties. This isn’t a reason to stay single, but it reminds us that nothing is without its risks.

Jobs and Businesses

You are much more likely to be injured working in a meat packing plant or on an oil rig than working in a shoe store or an insurance office, but in the modern Western world, most jobs are relatively safe. There isn’t a lot of physical risk. Financial risk is a different story, particularly if you are thinking of starting a new business. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t start a new business; many prosper and thrive. But one out of five businesses go bankrupt each year, and one out of two new businesses go under within a decade.