What are the odds of a child being bullied at school?
Evidence quality 4.75/5
Eight-dimension review score against the quality rubric . Each dimension scored 1–5.
- D1 Source grounding
- 5/5
- D2 Source authority
- 5/5
- D3 Arithmetic
- 4/5
- D4 Uncertainty
- 5/5
- D5 Scope
- 5/5
- D6 Prose
- 5/5
- D7 Perception honesty
- 4/5
- D8 Caveat completeness
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Lifetime probability · lifetime, subgroup
1 in 1.5
65% lifetime chance
range 1 in 2.2 to 1 in 1.2
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≈ As likely as
Perceived
Parental estimates of school bullying vary more than almost any other childhood risk. Some parents treat it as a near-universal rite of passage and assume every child will face it; others believe their child's school is essentially bully-free. Media coverage oscillates between moral panic (every school is a warzone) and reassurance (anti-bullying programs have solved it). When pressed for a number, most adults guess somewhere between 10% and 50%, a range wide enough to be almost uninformative. The lack of a stable public anchor makes this an unusually noisy perception.
Rough estimate: ~1 in 3 to 1 in 5 children, intuitively
Source: editorial intuition, not polled
Actual
~19% of US students ages 12-18 reported being bullied at school (NCES 2022)
US students ages 12-18 enrolled in grades 6-12
Show derivation
The NCES School Crime Supplement (2022) reports 19.2% of students ages 12-18 experienced bullying at school in the survey year. The CDC NCHS Data Brief 514 (October 2024), using National Health Interview Survey data from July 2021 to December 2023, found a higher figure: 34.0% of teenagers ages 12-17 were bullied in the past 12 months. Using the more conservative NCES annual rate of ~19% and compounding over 7 school years (grades 6-12): 1 - (1 - 0.19)^7 = 0.75. Using the YRBS high-school-only rate of ~19% for grades 9-12 and the NCES middle-school rate of ~26% for grades 6-8, a weighted compound gives ~0.72. However, bullying episodes are not fully independent year to year — some children are persistently targeted while others are never targeted. Adjusting downward for this clustering effect (correlation between years), a central estimate of ~0.65 is used. The NCHS figure of 34% per year would yield a much higher lifetime estimate (~0.95), but that survey uses a broader definition including verbal teasing that may not meet the NCES threshold.
Caveats: Prevalence estimates for school bullying range from 19% (NCES SCS, strict behavi…
Prevalence estimates for school bullying range from 19% (NCES SCS, strict behavioral criteria) to 34% (NCHS NHIS, broader parent/self-report) to 32% globally (UNESCO, past month). The discrepancy is driven by definition thresholds, reporting windows, and whether the survey asks about specific behaviors or uses the word "bullying" (self-labeling produces lower estimates). The lifetime compound of ~65% assumes imperfect year-to-year independence; if bullying is highly clustered in a subset of chronically targeted children, the population-level "ever bullied" rate may be lower than simple compounding suggests, but the individual burden on those children is much higher. The entry covers in-person bullying only; cyberbullying is tracked separately. Severity varies enormously — the 19% includes everything from a single name-calling incident to sustained physical intimidation over an entire school year. The 2023 YRBS increase from 15% to 19% may reflect post-pandemic social re-adjustment rather than a secular trend, and should be interpreted cautiously until the next survey cycle confirms or reverses it.
Regional breakdown
The headline figure averages across very different populations. Here’s how the probability varies by geography or context:
| Region / context | Lifetime probability | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Middle school (grades 6-8) | 1 in 3.8 |
Peak bullying age; NCES SCS 2022 reports 26% for this group |
| High school (grades 9-12) | 1 in 6.3 |
NCES SCS 2022; YRBS 2023 reports 19% for a slightly different question |
| Global average (past month) | 1 in 3.1 |
UNESCO 2019; includes physical and psychological bullying |
Risks at similar odds
Other risks with roughly the same likelihood — useful for calibration.
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The most reliable US estimate comes from the NCES School Crime Supplement, which asks students ages 12-18 about specific bullying behaviors rather than relying on the loaded word “bullying” itself. In the 2021-22 school year, 19% of students reported being bullied at school — verbal harassment (12%), rumor-spreading (10%), physical aggression (5%), deliberate exclusion (5%), and threats (4%). The CDC’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey independently converged on the same 19% for high schoolers, while a broader CDC household survey (NCHS Data Brief 514, 2024) found 34% of 12-17-year-olds bullied in the past year using a more inclusive definition. Compounding even the conservative 19% annual rate across seven school years gives a lifetime probability of roughly 65% — meaning most children will encounter in-person bullying at least once during their school career, though many of those encounters will be isolated incidents rather than sustained campaigns.
School bullying is one of the few risks where parental intuitions split almost evenly in opposite directions. Parents who were bullied themselves tend to overestimate prevalence and assume it is nearly universal; parents whose children attend well-resourced schools in low-conflict neighborhoods tend to assume it barely exists. Both intuitions contain a grain of truth. The 19-22% annual rate is high enough that bullying is genuinely common — in a classroom of 30, roughly six students experienced it that year — but low enough that the majority of children in any given year are not targeted. The distribution is also uneven: middle schoolers (26%) face it at nearly double the rate of high schoolers (16%), LGBTQ+ students at 1.6 times the average, and students with developmental disabilities at 1.4 times. These subgroup disparities mean that “the odds of being bullied” is not a single number but a distribution shaped by age, identity, and school environment.
The health consequences are well-documented and disproportionate to how casually bullying is sometimes dismissed. The NCHS found that bullied teenagers were nearly twice as likely to show symptoms of anxiety or depression. Longitudinal studies link childhood bullying victimization to elevated rates of PTSD symptoms, social withdrawal, and suicidal ideation that can persist into adulthood. The 2023 YRBS also flagged a worrying reversal: after years of decline, reported bullying on school property rose from 15% in 2021 to 19% in 2023, potentially reflecting post-pandemic social readjustment as students returned to in-person schooling. Whether that uptick is a blip or a trend reversal will not be clear until the next survey cycle.
Related tidbits
About 50% of US teens experience cyberbullying over high school. Combined with in-person bullying (65% over grades 6-12), harassment is now the norm rather than the exception for adolescents.
About 65% of US students experience bullying across grades 6-12. The odds of being killed in a school shooting are roughly 1 in 110,000 per year. The everyday harm dwarfs the headline risk.
65% of students experience bullying in grades 6-12. 48% of adults experience workplace bullying over a career. Graduation changes the setting, not the probability.
Claim ledger
Every number below is what each source reported, with the verbatim quote we relied on and how we arrived at our figure. Click any link to verify directly.
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[1] National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), U.S. Department of Education — Student Reports of Bullying: Results From the 2022 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey
Student Reports of Bullying: Results From the 2022 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey- Statistic
About 19% of students ages 12-18 reported being bullied at school during the 2021-22 school year; 26% in middle school, 16% in high school- Excerpt
“"In 2021-22, about 19 percent of students ages 12-18 reported being bullied during school. The percentage was higher for female students than for male students (22 vs. 17 percent) and higher for middle school students (26 percent) than high school students (16 percent)." ”
- Source data from
- 2024-02-01
- Accessed
- 2026-04-19 · archived copy
- Calculation
- The School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey is the gold-standard US measure. It surveys ~5,800 students ages 12-18 biennially. The 19% figure is the native estimate. Types of bullying: being made fun of, called names, or insulted (12%); subject of rumors (10%); pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on (5%); excluded from activities on purpose (5%); threatened with harm (4%). Among those bullied, 32% experienced it on 1 day, 18% on 2 days, 31% on 3-10 days, and 18% on more than 10 days in the school year.
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[2] National Center for Health Statistics, CDC — Bullying Victimization Among Teenagers: United States, July 2021-December 2023
Bullying Victimization Among Teenagers: United States, July 2021-December 2023- Statistic
34.0% of teenagers ages 12-17 were bullied in the past 12 months; 38.4% for ages 12-14, 29.7% for ages 15-17- Excerpt
“"During July 2021-December 2023, 34.0% of teenagers ages 12-17 were bullied in the past 12 months. The percentage was higher among younger teenagers ages 12-14 (38.4%) than among teenagers ages 15-17 (29.7%). Sexual or gender minority teenagers were more likely to be bullied (47.1%) than teenagers who are not a sexual or gender minority (30.0%)." ”
- Source data from
- 2024-10-01
- Accessed
- 2026-04-19 · archived copy
- Calculation
- NCHS Data Brief 514 uses National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data pooled over 2.5 years. The 34% figure is substantially higher than the NCES 19% because the NHIS uses a broader definition of bullying (parent- or self-report, includes verbal teasing that may not meet the SCS behavioral threshold). The NHIS also captures younger teens (12-14) who have higher victimization rates. The subgroup figures are critical for the personal factor multipliers: girls 38.3% vs boys 29.9%, SGM teens 47.1% vs non-SGM 30.0%, teens with developmental disability 44.4% vs without 31.3%.
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[3] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report 2013-2023
Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report 2013-2023- Statistic
In 2023, 19% of US high school students reported being bullied on school property in the past year, up from 15% in 2021- Excerpt
“"The percentage of high school students who reported being bullied on school property was 19.0% in 2023, compared with 15.2% in 2021. Female students (22%) were more likely than male students (17%) to report being bullied at school." ”
- Source data from
- 2024-06-01
- Accessed
- 2026-04-19 · archived copy
- Calculation
- The YRBS is a biennial survey of ~17,000 high school students (grades 9-12). The 2023 figure of 19% aligns with the NCES SCS figure for the same age group. The increase from 15% in 2021 is notable and may reflect post-pandemic social adjustment. YRBS also reports that 29% of LGB students were bullied at school, compared to approximately 17% of heterosexual students (roughly 1.7x multiplier). This source corroborates the NCES data and provides the trend context.
- Independence
- YRBS and SCS are independently administered surveys with different sampling frames; convergence on ~19% for high schoolers strengthens confidence in the native estimate.
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[4] UNESCO — Behind the Numbers: Ending School Violence and Bullying
Behind the Numbers: Ending School Violence and Bullying- Statistic
Almost 1 in 3 students (32%) worldwide has been bullied by peers at school at least once in the last month- Excerpt
“"Almost one in three students (32%) has been bullied by their peers at school at least once in the last month and a similar proportion are affected by physical violence. Bullying has decreased in almost half of the 71 countries and territories studied." ”
- Source data from
- 2019-01-01
- Accessed
- 2026-04-19 · archived copy
- Calculation
- UNESCO's global figure of 32% (past month) is substantially higher than the US annual figures because it includes countries with less developed anti-bullying infrastructure and uses a past-month reporting window. This source provides the global context and establishes that US rates, while concerning, are below the global average. Physical bullying is more common outside North America and Europe, where psychological bullying predominates.
- Independence
- UNESCO draws on HBSC, GSHS, PIRLS, and TIMSS data — survey instruments independent from US-administered NCES SCS and CDC YRBS.