People and the Internet - Who Uses The Internet? By Gender

Recent statistics show that more women use the Internet than men do.

Roughly 73 million women were Internet users as of September 2001, compared to 69.5 million men for this period. According to the source, women between the ages of 20 and 50 are more likely than men are to be Internet users; however, of those 60 and above, men have higher rates of Internet use than women do.

There may be more women on the Internet, but men spend more time there. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, men spent more time online, logged on more often, and viewed more pages:

Time Spent On Line

Measure	Male Surfers Dec. 2000	Female Surfers Dec. 2000	Male Surfers Dec. 2001	Female Surfers December 2001
Average time spent (hh:mm:ss)	9:42:14	7:44:57	11:20:27	9:06:51
Number of sessions	18	15	21	17
Average pages viewed	667	503	801	573

The source points out that during this period, men viewed 40% more pages than women did and logged onto the Internet 24% more times than women did.

What have women been doing online? According to A Nation Online, women used e-mail and searched for jobs at roughly the same rates as men. Women are more inclined to search for health information online than men are (39.8% compared to 29.6%). More men still shop online than women do, but the numbers for females have been spiking: 29% of online shoppers in September 1997 were female, while 38% of them were in April 1999, according to a study by CommerceNet Consortium and Nielsen Media Research. The same study found that the number of online purchases by women had increased 80%, with growth rates over 100% in categories such as CDs, videos, clothing, and computer hardware.

Sources: "Number of Female Web Surfers Grow Faster Than Overall Internet Population, According to Nielsen/Net Ratings." Retrieved from the World Wide Web: http://www.nielsen-netratings.com; Chart data: "Access Up, Divide Shrinks." Industry Standard, June 26, 2000, p. 186; "Flexing Their Online Muscles." New York Times, July 12, 1999, p. C4. U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2001, Washington D.C. 2001.