Stay single, wind up dead

If you are a single man reading this article, do yourself a favour and find a partner.

Data has revealed that single people are more likely to end up dead compared to their married, widowed or divorced counterparts, according to Statistics SA.

The agency's mortality and causes of death report released yesterday said 214,864 (46.7%) out of 460,236 total deaths recorded in 2015 were those of single people compared to 112,522 (24.4%) married, 48,984 (10.6%) widowed and 9,325 (2% ) divorced men.

Statistician-general Pali Lehohla said the risk of death was even more among single men than it was for single women.

"What is clear is that men who are not married are more exposed to death than those that are married."

Lehohla said the data showed that a man needed a partner to save his life.

"The death rate of single men is very high because you go out, go drink and come back and there is no one to ask you questions. Then you get into accidents ," he said.

The report notes that this pattern of death according to marital status observed in 2015 was consistent with that data from 2014.

• Stats SA also looked at causes of death and found that you are more likely to be beaten to death in Northern Cape, Western Cape and Eastern Cape than anywhere else in the country.

Eastern Cape topped the list with the number of assault-related deaths.

These accounted for 22.3% of the total of 68,423 recorded deaths in 2015.

Both Northern Cape and Western Cape came second with 21.6% of the total of 13,758 and 49,932 deaths being attributed to assault respectively.

Tuberculosis stubbornly remains the main cause of death for South Africans, killing most of the 460,236 people who died in 2015.

Although TB maintained its No1 spot in the causes of death, non-communicable diseases continue their rise in the rankings of top 10 leading causes of death with diabetes moving from third position in 2014 to second in 2015.

Non-communicable diseases formed 60% of the 10 leading underlying natural causes of death.