Germany’s Men Face an Overlooked Crisis—from Education to Homelessness

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

Germany’s Men Face an Overlooked Crisis—from Education to Homelessness

May 2, 2025 – While gender policy in Germany remains focused on empowering women, new data shows men are quietly falling behind—educationally, economically, and in health—yet receive far less attention.

Education:
Women aged 25–34 in Germany are more likely than men to hold a tertiary qualification—41% versus 36% (1). Among 20–24-year-olds, 34.7% of females completed general education compared to 27.2% of males. Just 9.6% of men in this group earned university degrees, versus 12.5% of women (2).

Health:
In 2024, women’s life expectancy in Germany was 83.9 years—nearly 5 years longer than men’s, at 79.2 (3). The adult mortality rate tells the same story: 85 male deaths per 1,000, compared to 46.2 for women (4).

Suicide:
The 2023 suicide rate among men in Germany was nearly triple that of women—17.9 per 100,000 versus 6.6. In 2022, 72.6% of all suicides were men (5).

Intimate Partner Violence:
More than half of German men—54.1%—have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV), mostly psychological (39.8%) and coercive control (38.6%). In 2023, 35% were recent victims. Psychological IPV rates in men can reach 93% in some research, yet male victims remain largely invisible in public discourse (6).

Parenting:
Of 2,808 family court custody transfers, nearly three-quarters (2,065) were awarded to mothers. In most cases of exclusive custody, mothers remained the default parent (7).

Homelessness:
In 2022, 274,000 men in Germany were homeless, compared to 18,500 women—making men the overwhelming majority of the country’s homeless population (8).

Workplace:
Fatal workplace accidents in Germany disproportionately affect men—91.7% of all such deaths. Men often work in higher-risk industries like mining and quarrying, accounting for the skew (9).

Conclusion:
These challenges are not exclusive to the country, but are part of a global problem. Germany leaders must address these urgent and underreported disparities to achieve real gender equity.

The International Council for Men and Boys is a non-governmental organization that is working to celebrate the contributions of men to society and to end the 12 sex disparities that affect men and boys around the world. Achieving #GenderEqualityForMen also will benefit women.
https://www.menandboys.net/

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