Globally, 79 per cent of men use the Internet, compared with 74 per cent of women. Although the number of female Internet users has increased by 54 per cent since 2019, compared with 48 per cent for men, there are still over 200 million more male Internet users than female Internet users worldwide in 2026.
Gender parity is deemed to have been achieved when the gender parity score, defined as the share of women using the Internet divided by the share of men using the Internet, is between 0.98 and 1.02. As is the case for overall Internet use, gender parity is closely correlated with level of development.
The global gender parity score has improved gradually, from 0.91 in 2019 to 0.94 in 2026. Among ITU regions, gender parity has been achieved in Europe, the Americas and the CIS. In the Asia-Pacific region, the gender parity score has increased from 0.89 in 2019 to 0.93 in 2026. The Arab States region recorded a similar improvement, from 0.84 to 0.91 over the same period. Africa continues to record the largest gender gap, although since 2019 its gender parity score has increased from 0.72 to 0.84.
There have been similar improvements in the gender parity score in LDCs and LLDCs, although men remain considerably more likely than women to use the Internet. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) stand out as a notable exception to the strong correlation between gender parity and overall Internet use, having nearly achieved gender parity even though less than two-thirds of the population use the Internet.