PRESS RELEASE
Contact: G. Lawrence DeMarco, LLM
Email: ldemarco@menandboys.net
Phone: +1-215-901-1930
Vietnam’s Data Highlights an Overlooked Dimension of Gender Inequality
January 23, 2026 – Vietnam’s national indicators reveal not isolated problems, but a systemic pattern of outcomes that place men and boys at greater risk across multiple stages of life.
Education
Educational data show persistent gaps disadvantaging boys. At the lower secondary level, completion rates are 81% for boys compared to 87% for girls, and at the upper secondary level only 50% of boys complete school versus 61% of girls. These disparities continue into higher education, where men’s tertiary enrollment stands at 25.53% compared to 31.72% for women (1). Dropout rates reinforce this pattern, with boys leaving lower secondary school at a higher rate—10.19% compared to 8.69% for girls (2).
Health
In 2024, women’s life expectancy reached 77.3 years, nearly five years longer than men’s average of 72.3 years (3). Adult mortality rates reflect this gap, with 180.8 deaths per 1,000 men compared to 73.8 per 1,000 women (4).
Suicide
Men die by suicide at a rate of 10.4 per 100,000, more than double the rate for women at 4.3 per 100,000 (5)(6).
Child Labor
National survey data show that approximately 60% of child laborers are boys, compared to 40% girls, with the disparity most evident among older adolescents aged 15–17 (7).
Child Custody
Divorce court records between 2009 and 2017 reveal a clear imbalance in custody outcomes. Mothers were awarded custody in 69.0% of cases, while fathers received custody in just 24.8%, and shared custody occurred in only 6.2% of divorces (8).
Workplace
Men face significantly higher occupational risks. A community-level study in Xuan Tien Commune found that men experienced approximately 289 workplace injuries per 1,000 full-time equivalent workers, compared to 119 per 1,000 among women. National surveillance data confirm this pattern, with men accounting for 61% of reported work-related injuries, compared to 39% involving women (9)(10).
Conclusion.
These outcomes highlight the importance of ensuring that gender-equality policies in Vietnam include men and boys.
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:
1.https://investinginwomen.asia/vietnam/?utm
2.https://www.scribd.com/document/702736443/Out-Of-school-Children-in-Viet-Nam-a-Country-Study-2014?utm
4.https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/indicator/sp-dyn-amrt?gender=male
5.https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.SUIC.MA.P5
6.https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.SUIC.FE.P5
8.https://e-asianwomen.org/pdf/10.14431/aw.2023.9.39.3.23?utm