Facebook Gender Demographics – A Comparison by Country
As Facebook celebrates its fifth birthday this month, we’re taking a quick look at Facebook’s gender demographics, overall and on a per-country basis. The following analysis was constructed using usage statistics obtained directly from Facebook, and represents a country-by-country national snapshot of Facebook’s gender ratio. These Facebook gender demographics are current as of February 9th, 2009.
Overall, Facebook’s demographics reveal some interesting trends which bear mentioning. On average, the ratio of male to female Facebook users is .85, meaning that there are significantly more Female facebook users than male ones. This plays out with general trends in social networking gender demographics, which tend to show a predominantly female base of users.
Looking deeper and viewing Facebook’s gender demographics on a national basis, though, we find some stark differences which break down along less obvious lines. The three most “feminine” countries, Russia, Poland, and Lithuania, are all European countries, each with a ratio of almost 2 female Facebook users for every male facebook user. In fact, the majority of large European countries are neutral or leaning feminine, with the notable exception of Turkey, which shows a strong male demographic.
For Western English speaking countries the ratio of males to females was very similar with about 40-45% male and 55-60% female.
Among African countries, only South Africa showed a female demographic; the vast majority of African countries show a predominantly male Facebook demographic. The same applies for the Middle East, with Israel as the only feminine holdout.
The most extreme Facebook user gender imbalance is in Bangladesh, where men outnumber women by a ratio of over 2.5 men using Facebook for every female Facebook user. Other notably “masculine” biased countries include Ghana, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
We hope this information will give some insight for both publishers and advertisers to help with their facebook campaigns.
8. March 2009 at 10:10
[...] variety of evidence indicating that females are more sociable than males. Worldwide, Facebook has 1.18 female users per male user. In the U.S., which is the country with the largest number of Facebook users, Facebook has 1.36 [...]
9. March 2009 at 07:40
[...] use Facebook, putting Australia at no 7 in the world in terms of users per capita. Females are more frequent users than their male counterparts. McKinsey argues that joining Facebook and social networks [...]
31. May 2009 at 10:01
Where can one find the raw demographic data for Facebook? I want to see tables, or graphs, that show the inclusive breakdowns for sex, age, and educational level for Americans, but I can only find limited comparisons such as the above. I want it all, and I want all of the components shown in one table Where can I find it?
24. July 2009 at 04:59
Hello,
are you aware of a similar breakdown showing the number of users for each country? I found one regarding europe, but it was only discussing the most populated country. I am looking for a more comprehensive information.
I could not find a way to receive email notification for new comments on this blog page. could you be so kind to send me an email if you have an answer?
thank you!