PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Henry Herrera
Phone: +1-301-801-0608
Email: info@menandboys.net
Saudi Arabia’s Data Show Concentrated Risk Among Men and Boys
February 13, 2026 – A review of Saudi Arabia’s national statistics reveals measurable gender disparities across education, health outcomes, safety, and childhood welfare, with men and boys consistently experiencing higher risk exposure in several critical areas.
Education:
Recent higher education data show a growing gender gap at the tertiary level. In 2022, women represented 54.63% of undergraduate enrollment compared to 45.37% for men, and 52.36% of master’s students compared to 47.64% for men (1). The overall female-to-male ratio at the tertiary level stands at 1.11, confirming the continued underrepresentation of men in higher education (2).
Child Maltreatment:
National research reveals measurable gender disparities in childhood abuse and neglect. A study of young adults in Riyadh found that 51.1% reported experiencing physical abuse during childhood, with males approximately 1.5 times more likely than females to have suffered physical abuse (3). In a national survey of 16,010 secondary school students, 16% reported lifetime sexual abuse, with boys more likely than girls to report such experiences (4). Clinical registry data from 2015–2019 further show that 51.8% of documented child neglect victims were boys, compared to 46.3% girls (5).
Health:
Life expectancy for women is 81.7 years, compared to 77.8 years for men (6). Adult mortality rates further illustrate the gap, with 95.6 deaths per 1,000 adult men versus 56.2 per 1,000 adult women (7).
Homicide:
Approximately 90% of homicide victims in the most recent reported year were male, reflecting a severe gender imbalance in exposure to lethal violence. (8).
Suicide:
Suicide mortality stands at 1.14 per 100,000 for men, compared to 0.66 per 100,000 for women (9)
Workplace:
Injuries are overwhelmingly concentrated among men. In 2024, males accounted for 96.6% of reported injuries (22,312 cases), compared to 3.4% for females (797 cases), with injuries heavily concentrated in manual labor, manufacturing, and construction sectors (10).
Conclusion:
Addressing these disparities is essential to achieving a balanced and inclusive vision of gender equality in Saudi Arabia.
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/.
Links:
3.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37288199/
4.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30567869/
5.https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9389900/?utm
6.https://georank.org/life-expectancy/saudi-arabia#:~:text=Saudi%20Arabia%20life%20expectancy%20&%20odds%20of%20living%20to%20calculator&text=Saudi%20Arabia%20is%20ranked%2049,years%20for%20both%20genders%20combined.
7.https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/indicator/sp-dyn-amrt?gender=male
8.https://datosmacro.expansion.com/demografia/homicidios/arabia-saudita?anio=2017&utm
9.https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/sau/saudi-arabia/suicide-rate
10.https://www.hrpub.org/download/20250930/UJPH17-17641936.pdf