The number of American women who use the Internet has grown to nearly 38%, significantly closing the gap between them and their male counterparts from 21% to 8% during the last two years.
This growth in Internet use by women was reported in the study, Internet User Trends: Year-End 1998. This research tracked Internet usage by gender from the middle of 1997 to the end of 1998 and showed that, while more men use the Internet, that margin has narrowed quickly and significantly.
Internet User Trends is a semi-annual report published by The Strategis Group, based in Washington D.C., to monitor and analyze Internet usage in the United States. This report is based on several hundred interviews drawn from a sampling of the nation's nine census regions and can be ordered online at www.gii.co.jp/english/sg3541_internet_user.html.
In mid 1997, the study reports, 37.3% of men were Internet users as compared to 16.5% of women who used the Internet. However, the number of women who use the Internet grew to 37.8 % by the end of 1998... a whopping 21.3%. The number of men who use the Internet also grew, from 37.3% in mid-1997 to 46% at the end of 1998, or 8.7%.
"This gap will continue to narrow," forecasts Elliott Hamilton, senior vice president, North American Telecom at Strategis Group. "The Internet adoption rate is essentially the same for male and female users 18 to 34, while female users 65 and older are less than half as likely to use the Internet as their male counterparts."
While the gender-gap continues to close, the way men and women use the Internet is quite different. For instance, women predominantly make online clothing purchases, while men predominantly make software and electronics purchases. Also, women are about twice as likely to be light users, online two hours or less per week, at work and about an hour less online time at home. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to change their Internet service provider due to price increases and are more concerned with high-speed access than women.
"The Internet's days as the domain of technology-oriented men are over," said Strategis Group's consultant Matt Page. "Companies advertising online and doing E-business will fall behind unless they understand how this shift toward more females and more mainstream users overall will affect them."
