In Summary:
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On August 20, the New Republic Newspaper claimed in a publication that men are in short supply worldwide, citing a 2025 UN demographic report for the first quarter of the year.
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The article states that the world’s population is 7.8 billion, with women accounting for 5.6 billion and men for 2.2 billion.
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However, we have verified the claim and found it to be misleading. The UN has not released such a report.
The New Republic Newspaper, a local daily in Liberia, published an article on August 20 claiming that there is a global shortage of men, citing figures allegedly from the United Nations’ 1st Quarter Demographic Report for 2025.
The claim that men are in short supply worldwide has been widely shared on Facebook, appearing in multiple posts (see here, here, and here).
According to the purported statistics, the world’s population stands at 7.8 billion, with 5.6 billion women and 2.2 billion men.
The article further claims that the UN has advised women to exercise caution in their attitude toward men, noting that out of the 2.2 billion men, 1 billion are already married, 130 million are in prison, and 70 million suffer from mental health conditions or other illnesses.
The report concludes that only 1 billion men are “available” for marriage, of which 56% are unemployed, 3% are gay, 1% are Catholic priests, 10% are parents or relatives, and 30% are over the age of 65.
The United Nations is an international organization established in 1945 by 51 founding countries to maintain international peace and security, foster friendly relations among nations, promote international cooperation, and uphold human rights.
The Claim
The Article’s caption reads: “Breaking News: Men are in short supply worldwide.”
Rating Justification
To verify this claim, we searched the website of the United Nations. Our search found no such 1sr Quarter Report of 2025.
At the UN, population issues are addressed through two main entities: the United Nations Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), which produces the official demographic estimates and projections for all countries and regions worldwide; and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which focuses more on the gender and human rights aspects of population concerns.
The two entities have not released any first-quarter UN demographic report for 2025.
According to the UN World Population Prospects for 2024, the World population is projected at 8.23 billion in 2025, from 8.16 billion in 2024, indicating that there are 4.14 billion males and 4.09 billion females.
The percentage of the male population is 50.27%, compared to 49.73% of the female population. This means the world has 43.81 million more males than females, and not more females than males, as claimed by the paper.
Meanwhile, we came across a 2021 fact-check report by Factly, an Indian fact-checking and data journalism platform, which debunked the same wording that appeared in the viral social media posts.
Conclusion
Based on our findings, we conclude that the claim made by the New Republic Newspaper in its August 20th publication that there shortage of men worldwide, citing a UN 1st Quarter Demographic Report for 2025, is misleading. The UN has not published such a report.
