Explore how the outdated breadwinner myth is impacting South African men's mental health, as Sebastien Alexanderson reveals the truth behind this societal expectation and its economic implications.
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What happens to a man's mind when the myth he built his identity around was always a lie? It’s Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month. South African men are facing a mental health crisis fuelled by an idealised provider myth that was never possible to begin with.
The idea of the male breadwinner is often treated as an ancient and natural arrangement. It is neither. Historians trace the term “breadwinner” to the early Victorian period, when industrialisation moved labour outside the home and, for a narrow slice of society, made the single male earner economically possible.
For most working-class households, then as now, this was never the reality. Women worked. Multiple incomes were common. Families survived through shared contribution, not one man’s wage.
Yet the notion had embedded itself so deeply in cultural expectations that by the late twentieth century, men across the Global South were measuring their worth against a standard that, even in its supposed golden era, most men never actually met.
External research suggests that attachment to traditional roles may be hardening rather than loosening. A 2025 Ipsos survey with the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College London found Gen Z men across 29 countries were more likely than their female peers to hold traditional views on gender roles.
These views may reflect economic anxiety rather than confidence in the provider model, with some men clinging to traditional authority because they feel increasingly unstable.
The expectation is a phantom. But the shame it produces when you fail to meet it is entirely real, and it is that mental health toll of that shame, not the debt itself, that paralyses people.
South Africa’s current economic conditions have made the gap between the breadwinner's expectations and household reality increasingly difficult to ignore. Youth unemployment stands at 60.9% [Stats SA QLFS Q1: 2026], while the cost of housing, food, electricity, and transport has risen sharply in recent years [Stats SA CPI, May 2026]. For many households, a single income has not covered basic living costs for years.
The breadwinner ideal was always a lie. The economy has simply stopped pretending otherwise.
What credit is offered, and what it costs
A store card at Jet or Mr Price. A personal loan to cover school fees. A credit card limit that stretches just far enough to absorb a car repair. These products do more than cover expenses. They help preserve the appearance of control.
National Debt Advisors’ data shows 98% of debt review applicants carry unsecured credit, averaging 4.1 accounts each. Store cards and personal loans appear in roughly half of client files, while home loans appear in just 5%.
Unsecured credit became the gap-filler between what men could earn and what they felt they were supposed to provide. Predatory lenders were not simply selling credit. They were selling identity back to the people the economy had taken it from.
Among National Debt Advisors’ clients, men outnumber women by roughly 1.6 to 1, despite earning almost the same median income: R12,000 for men compared with R11,786 for women. The debt-to-income ratio rises from 0.40 for men in their early twenties to 0.97 for those aged 56 to 65, meaning some men nearing retirement owe almost a full year’s gross income.
This is not evidence of recklessness, but of prolonged silence.
The older a man is, the longer he has often tried to perform the provider role on borrowed money. By the time many seek help, the debt is already severe, and so is the silence around it.
* Alexanderson is the head of National Debt Advisors (NDA).
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