Men spend more time online than women

Proportionally, there are slightly more men than women using the internet worldwide, according to a United Nations (UN) report.

And it appears that the poorer the country, the greater this divide.

The number of internet users continues to grow, up from 4.1 billion in 2019 to 4.9 billion in 2021, according to a report released by the International Telecommunication Union, the UN agency for information and communication technologies.

However, 2.9 billion people globally are still offline – more than one third of the world’s population. Unsurprisingly, this notably affects some of the world’s poorest populations, with 96% of those offline living in developing countries.

Women can be particularly marginalised, with nearly four in five still offline in the least developed countries. Many of the individuals excluded from the digital world face not only poverty, but also illiteracy and even limited access to electricity.

But there is a positive momentum. In the 46 UN-designated least-developed countries, internet penetration has grown by more than 20% in the last two years.

A slightly higher proportion of men (62%) than women (57%) use the internet worldwide.

However, this gender divide is more balanced in developed countries (89% of men and 88% of women are online) than in the poorest countries (31% of men compared to just 19% of women).

An average of 71% of the world’s population aged 15 to 24 go online regularly, compared to 57% for other age groups.

This is more pronounced in poorer countries, where 34% of young people are online, compared to 22% for the rest of the population.

Finally, the urban-rural divide, while less pronounced in developed countries, remains another major challenge for internet connectivity.

Globally, urban residents are twice as likely to use the internet as rural residents (76% urban vs 39% rural). –