Australia Confronts a Widening Divide Affecting Its Men and Boys

PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Henry Herrera
Phone: +1-301-801-0608
Email: info@menandboys.net

Australia Confronts a Widening Divide Affecting Its Men and Boys

August 21, 2026 – Across Australia, men and boys face stark gender gaps in education, health, family life, safety, and employment, with national statistics showing significantly poorer outcomes in several key areas.

Education:

Australian education data show a persistent gap disadvantaging boys. The Year 12 completion rate is 85.3% for girls, compared with 77.6% for boys (1). Among Australians aged 25–34, 53.3% of women held a bachelor’s degree or above, compared with 40.0% of men (2)

The gap continues in higher education. Women accounted for 62% of commencing domestic higher education students, compared with 38% of men (3). In 2025, 17.1% of Australian women aged 15–74 were currently enrolled in study, compared with 15.7% of men (2).

Health:

Life expectancy at birth is 81.1 years for males, compared with 85.1 years for females (4). The adult mortality rate is also substantially higher among men, at 72.6 deaths per 1,000 adults, compared with 41.6 among women (5).

Homicide:

Between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025, Australia recorded 279 homicide victims, of whom 80% were men (6).

Suicide:

In 2023, men died by suicide at a rate of 18.0 per 100,000, compared with 5.8 per 100,000 for women—more than three times the female rate—and consequently accounted for approximately 75% of all suicide deaths (7).

Shared Parenting:

Court proceedings in Australia show a substantial gender disparity in sole custody outcomes. Mothers receive sole custody in 45% of court proceedings, compared with just 11% in which fathers receive sole custody (8).

Domestic Violence:

Among people currently in a relationship, 12.0% of men reported experiencing physical abuse in the previous 12 months, compared with 5.9% of women, showing that men also experienced physical abuse at more than twice the rate reported by women (9).

Homelessness:

Males accounted for 55.9% of people experiencing homelessness, compared with 44.1% of females (10).

Workplace:

In 2024, men accounted for 96% of workers killed in work-related activities, representing 180 fatalities. Their fatality rate was also significantly higher, at 2.4 fatalities per 100,000 workers, compared with just 0.1 per 100,000 among women (11).

Conclusion:

Australia must act now to confront the struggles of men and boys because only by addressing these disparities can the country achieve true gender equality and build a more inclusive future for all.

The International Council for Men and Boys (ICMB) is a non-governmental organization working to celebrate the contributions of men to society and to end the 12 sex-based disparities affecting men and boys worldwide. ICMB has conducted analyses of male disadvantage in more than 50 countries, available at https://www.menandboys.net/country/

Update — August 24, 2026 – The Domestic Violence section has been updated to reflect the most current national data available.

A nationally representative 2025 study in the Medical Journal of Australia found that 40.4% of Australian men and 48.4% of Australian women reported intimate partner violence since the age of 16 (12), from which the One in Three Campaign calculates that men are 45.5% of all victims (13). The public narrative still treats abuse as something men do and women suffer, and services are built on what the One in Three Campaign calls the “erroneous position” that “the vast majority of perpetrators are male and the vast majority of victims are female” (14): of 336 Australian domestic violence providers identified, 237 were dedicated to female victims, 22 to pets, and 5 to men (13).

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Posted: https://www.menandboys.net/pr/australia-confronts-a-widening-divide-affecting-its-men-and-boys/

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