PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Henry Herrera
Phone: +1-301-801-0608
Email: info@menandboys.net
Tunisia’s Men and Boys Face Widening Gaps in Health, Education, and Safety —Reform Is Essential for True Equality
July 3, 2025 – While Tunisia has made progress on many gender issues, growing evidence shows men and boys are quietly falling behind—in school, at work, and in their own homes.
Education:
Men are increasingly underrepresented in higher education. In 2020, just 37% of tertiary students were male compared to 63% for females, down from previous years (1). By lower secondary school, the gap is already visible: 90.1% of girls complete it, compared to only 71.4% of boys (2).
Literacy rates also show a gender divide: 79% for women versus 72.2% for men (3).
Between 2017 and 2022, 70% of university graduates were women (4).
Health:
Tunisian men face poorer health outcomes across the board. Life expectancy in 2023 was 73.92 years for men, compared to 79.15 for women (5). Adult mortality is nearly double for men—115 per 1,000 vs. 57.6 for women (6).
Child Labor:
Boys are more likely to be burdened by intense labor. Among working children, 11.3% of boys work 49–70 hours a week, compared to 4% of girls (7).
Homicide:
In 2020, Out of 562 homicide victims, 447 were men—a rate of 7.43 per 100,000, nearly four times higher than that for women (1.87 per 100,000) (8).
Suicide:
In 2024, 76% of suicide cases involved men—101 of 133 total deaths—pointing to an urgent and under-addressed mental health crisis (9).
IPV:
According to a national survey in 2019, 52% of men report experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV), compared to 32% of women. In rural areas, the disparity is even greater—64% of men vs 10% of women (10)
Workplace:
Men account for 95% of fatal workplace accidents. Between 2019 and 2021, most occurred in sectors like construction and transport. The leading causes were falls (29.8%), heart attacks at work (17.9%), and electrocution (13.1%) (11).
Conclusion:
Tunisia must confront these imbalances to ensure true 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/
Links:
2.https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/economies/tunisia
3.https://data.unwomen.org/country/tunisia
5.https://www.statista.com/statistics/971260/life-expectancy-at-birth-in-tunisia-by-gender/
6.https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/indicator/sp-dyn-amrt?gender=male
7.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321965973_CHILD_LABOR_AND_SCHOOLING_IN_TUNISIA
8.https://countryeconomy.com/demography/homicides/tunisia?utm
9.https://www.businessnews.com.tn/tunisie–133-cas-de-suicide-en-2024%2C520%2C144239%2C3?utm
11.https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/74/Supplement_1/0/7707194