There's a sad real-world example of people who are willing to shorten their lives in order to earn more money: the sulphur miners of East Java ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12301421 ). The motivations are a bit different in this case - the miners are doing this to be in a little less poverty - but the net effect I think is to make things a bit harder for the people who choose to take lower-paying jobs and not to put their lives at such risk (since the miners who have more money presumably get first dibs on available food to purchase).