Why is men's suicide rate higher than women's in 191 of 192 countries?

DATA Report No.1 series, Part 2 of 12

The gap between men and women is not a quirk of a few countries. It appears almost everywhere there is data.

By Charley Bickers, Founder of UN For Men - The United Global Alliance For Men & Boys

Across the 192 countries with data, the male suicide rate is higher than the female rate in 191 [S1]. In 112 of them, it is at least three times higher (our calculation) [S1].

That is the finding at the centre of this part of DATA Report No.1, the first report of The United Global Alliance For Men & Boys. It is worth reading twice. This is not a problem of one region, one income level or one culture. It is close to universal.

The rates

Worldwide in 2021, the age-standardised suicide rate was 12.2 per 100,000 men and 5.6 per 100,000 women [S1]. Men's rate is 2.2 times women's (our calculation).

The gap varies a great deal. The largest ratios are in Georgia (9.24), Jamaica (8.03), Venezuela (7.99), Kuwait (7.72) and Saint Lucia (7.61). In the UK the ratio is 3.29, and in the USA 3.62. These ratios are our calculation on WHO rates [S1].

The highest male rate in the world is in Lesotho: 63.5 per 100,000 men, against 21.1 for women, a ratio of 3.0 (our calculation) [S1].

Adapted from WHO Global Health Estimates 2021, 2024. WHO is not responsible for the content or accuracy of this adaptation. https://www.who.int/data/global-health-estimates · Accessed 3 November 2026.

What a near-universal gap tells us

When a pattern shows up in one country, it is reasonable to look for local reasons. When it shows up in 191 of 192 countries, the question changes. It becomes a question about men's lives in general, and about how well the world's health and social systems reach them.

The data cannot answer that question on its own. A rate tells us how many men died. It does not tell us what was happening in their lives, which services they had been in touch with, or where help might have reached them first. In most countries, that information is not collected at all. Later parts of this series look at that gap in detail.

There is a second caution. These rates are built on recorded deaths. Most countries cannot count suicide directly from their death records, and WHO models their rates instead [S29]. The figures are the best that exist, and they are minimum figures.

The question

If a pattern holds in almost every country on earth, it is not a national problem. It is a global one.

In 2010 the United Nations created UN Women. Sixteen years later, there is still no United Nations body for men. The Alliance's position is that men and boys deserve the same formal attention within the international system that women and girls already receive.

So the question is this. If men's suicide rate is higher in 191 of 192 countries, where is the international effort that matches the size of the gap?

Sources

Source numbers refer to the full report's source list.

• [S1] WHO, Global Health Estimates 2021 (2024 release): deaths and age-standardised death rates from self-harm by sex, via Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/suicide-death-rates-by-sex-who ; catalogue: https://catalog.ourworldindata.org/grapher/who/2024-07-30/ghe/ghe.feather

• [S29] WHO, Mental Health, Brain Health and Substance Use: suicide data page, "Data quality" (estimates for 2021). https://www.who.int/teams/mental-health-and-substance-use/data-research/suicide-data

Download the full DATA Report No.1: https://www.unformen.com/report-no-1

Organisations are invited to join the Alliance; anyone may get in touch: https://www.unformen.com/alliance

DATA Report No.1, published by The United Global Alliance For Men & Boys.

The United Global Alliance For Men & Boys is not part of, affiliated with, or endorsed by the United Nations. UN for Men is our campaign for a dedicated UN body for men and boys.