US Women Lag Behind Men In At-Work Surfing

In addition, a disproportionate share of clerical or administrative workers who were online were women, accounting for 27% of all female web surfers at work, or nearly 4.5 million women. Just 3.5% of all male surfers, or 862,000 men, occupied clerical or administrative positions.

“Socio-cultural factors contribute to the gendered division of labour at work, with women clustered in clerical or administrative fields, while men dominate professional, executive or managerial positions,” said Dawn McCaffrey Brozek, senior internet analyst at NetRatings.

Occupation of Web Surfers According to Gender, Ranked by Female Composition% (US Work)
Occupation	% Females	Unique Audience (000s)	% Males	Unique Audience (000s)
Professional	19.5	3,225	24.8	6,059
Executive or Managerial	13.5	2,228	25.0	6,123
Clerical or Administrative	27.2	4,499	3.5	862
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, 13 March 2002

“The occupational stratification by gender among surfers demonstrates that males may be heavier consumers of the Web in the workplace because of the type of jobs they perform,” added Brozek. “Even though both men and women have computer and Internet access at work, women trail in their use of Internet technology in the workplace and a digital divide between men and women still exists.”