The west ‘facing death by a thousand cuts’
Looking at men living in rural areas, who are particularly vulnerable, figures show there are more than 100,000 single males between 25 and 44 living in the countryside — that is almost half of the total male rural population and an increase of more than 70,000 in 10 years.
Coupled with this, there has been a massive decrease in the number of 25 to 29-year-olds living in rural areas. In 1996, there were almost 400,000 living in the countryside, but despite a rising population trend overall, this decreased to 101,703 in 2006.