PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Henry Herrera
Phone: +1-301-801-0608
Email: info@menandboys.net
In South Africa, Men and Boys Are Facing a Hidden Crisis That Demands Urgent Action
June 6, 2025 – South Africa is facing a silent emergency: men and boys are falling behind in education, health, safety, and social outcomes—yet these issues remain widely overlooked in the national conversation.
Education:
In 2021, audited data revealed a sharp university enrollment gap: 655,427 women versus just 412,428 men. (1)
By 2022, only 84.8% of boys completed lower secondary school, compared to 94% of girls. (2)
Among adults aged 25–64, just 6.5% of men held a degree in 2023—lower than the 8.1% for women. (3)
Health:
Male life expectancy in 2023 was 62.61 years—seven years less than the 69.6 years for women. (4)(5)
Adult mortality rates mirror this disparity: 327.2 deaths per 1,000 men vs. 212.6 for women. (6)
Homicide:
In 2021/22, South Africa recorded 25,204 murders—20,924 of the victims were men. (7)
Between January and March 2023 alone, 5,065 men were murdered compared to 969 women. (7)
Suicide:
In 2019, 13,774 suicides were reported—10,861 were men. That’s nearly four times the rate of women: 37.6 vs. 9.8 per 100,000. (8)
Child Custody:
Despite reforms, courts still award custody to mothers in 90% of divorce cases. Fathers often struggle in a system described as biased. (9)
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV):
Men in South Africa are also affected by intimate partner violence—yet their experiences are often ignored. A study found that 18.5% of men reported psychological IPV and 14.4% reported economic IPV—both higher than the rates for women (14.7% and 9.5%). (10)
While physical IPV was slightly more common among women (8.7%) than men (7.7%), male victims still face serious abuse with far less recognition (10)
Homelessness:
New census data in 2022 counted 55,719 homeless people—70% of them men. (11)
Workplace:
Men suffer the majority of work-related deaths in high-risk industries—51.4 per 100,000 working-age men compared to 17.2 for women. (12)
Conclusion:
South Africa must confront these overlooked disparities and work toward true gender equality that includes men and boys.
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/
Links:
1.https://shunstudent.com/article/how-many-university-students-are-in-south-africa?utm
2. https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/economies/south-africa
4. https://tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/life-expectancy-at-birth-male-years-wb-data.html
6. https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/indicator/sp-dyn-amrt?gender=male
9.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21528586.2024.2361775?utm_