Every fourth Swedish man has never cheated

Published 23 November 2024 at 16.07

Domestic. A new survey from RFSU and Verian reveals alarming figures about Swedish men's loneliness and difficulties in creating relationships. One in six has no one to talk to about a difficult situation.

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The survey, which includes 1,000 people and was carried out earlier this year, shows that men generally are more lonely than women.

Among other things, 16 percent of men lack someone to talk to about a difficult situation – compared to 8 percent of women.

Almost half of the men in the age group 31-40 years, 47 percent, find it difficult to make contact for a sexual relationship. Almost a quarter of men of the same age, 24 percent, say they have never dared to make contact for a romantic relationship.

Loneliness is a well-known risk factor for mental illness, and according to RFSU, workplaces need to take greater responsibility to prevent this. Many men only have social contact through work, which makes the workplace an important arena for conversations about feelings and relationships.

– For many, the workplace is the only place where you meet other people and have a social context. Having a high ceiling for conversations about feelings in the workplace can make a big difference to men's mental health, says Pelle Ullholm, an expert at RFSU, in a press release.

RFSU, together with the trade union Papers, has started the project How is the situation ?, where safety representatives are trained to promote conversations about mental health and relationships in male-dominated workplaces.

– Safety representatives have a vital role in catching colleagues who are not feeling well. We hope that more trade unions and employers will want to get involved, says Ullholm.