Digital Divide For Women Persists @ Work.

Nielsen//NetRatings reports that in January 2002, nearly half of all male Web surfers, or 12.2 million men, were employed in professional, executive or managerial roles, versus just one third of all female surfers at-work, or 5.5 million.

During the same time period, a disproportionate share of clerical or administrative workers who were online were women, accounting for 27 percent of all female Web surfers at-work, or nearly 4.5 million women. By comparison, just 3.5 percent of all male surfers, or 862,000 men, occupied clerical or administrative positions.

“Socio-cultural factors contribute to the gendered division of labor 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, NetRatings.

To view chart CLICK above on ‘More Images’.

Although females account for 51 percent of the at-home online population, they still trail behind their male counterparts at work with a 40/60 split. Additionally, Web usage by females at work lags behind usage by males in every metric, with men using the Internet more aggressively. Female office workers initiated 11 percent fewer surfing sessions in January, spent 18 percent less time online and viewed 13 percent fewer Web pages as compared to male surfers (see Table 2).

“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,” continued 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.”