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Do men and women read books differently?
A study of reading habits showed almost half of women are 'page turners' who finish a book soon after starting it compared to only 26 per cent of men.
The survey 2,000 adults also found those who take a long time to read books and only managed one or two a year were twice as likely to be male than female.
Men are also more likely to have shelves full of books that have never been opened.
The only similarities between the sexes came among those who have two books on the bedside table at once and who start one book on the middle of reading another, switching easily. Twelve per cent of women were in this category – exactly the same number as men.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 24, 2009 at 07:18 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
When my wife is reading a book, I go about my business. When I am reading a book, my wife gets a spontaneous insatiable urge to chat. I take much longer to read books and have shelves full of books that have never been opened.
Posted by: Alex J. at Mar 24, 2009 8:37:31 AM
When my wife reads about Disney world, she wants to chat about it while I'm reading Security Analysis.
I am often tempted to lie that I have read about Disney World and haven't been sneaking peaks at investment books.
I only lied about reading Shakespeare to the professor.
Posted by: Andrew at Mar 24, 2009 8:41:46 AM
Do they read books differently, or do they read different books? I hate to channel Larry Summers here, but if women read Sandra Brown or Dan Brown while men read James Joyce or non-fiction, I could see how women would read faster and men would have shelves of never opened books.
Posted by: Bushequalhitler at Mar 24, 2009 8:48:18 AM
"The men polled said they would be most impressed by women who read news websites, Shakespeare or SONG LYRICS (emphasis added). Women said men should have read Nelson Mandela's biography or Shakespeare."
Who are the men who would be most impressed by women who read song lyrics? Or even news websites? I generally look for indications of substantive reading- blogs that make you think and provide commentary on the news (I'm partial to economics), and at least moderate exposure to classic literature.
It seems as though the men and women polled are impressed by the content of basic high school English classes. Its a good thing I spent all that time memorizing the monologues and soliloquies in Hamlet.
Posted by: Ryan at Mar 24, 2009 8:50:07 AM
I'll let you know what I think about the article when I finish reading it in a few days or so.
Nice picture, though, huh?
Posted by: john at Mar 24, 2009 9:06:47 AM
I guess I am outlier, since I am male, but I quickly finish a book after starting it, and I read > 100 books last year. Hmm...
Posted by: Andy at Mar 24, 2009 9:45:11 AM
Who taught women to read? They should stick to important stuff like washing my clothes
Posted by: blank at Mar 24, 2009 10:01:14 AM
Do men and women read books differently? Yes. Men read in the bathroom, women don't.
Posted by: MostlyAPragmatist at Mar 24, 2009 10:09:29 AM
Might not be a sex difference so much as an occupation effect.
I'd likely read fiction all the way through, but if I was trying to fix a compressor or figure out how to control the mildew on my squash, or look up how to run a Tobit model I'd just turn to that section in the book.
I'd no more start at the front and go to the back in a short time than I'd read the NYSE tables starting with "A" and ending with "Z" every morning.
Posted by: Zbicyclist at Mar 24, 2009 10:13:28 AM
I am not reading Shakespeare. Not for a woman. Not for $1,000,000. Not even for world peace.
Posted by: Robert Olson at Mar 24, 2009 10:30:58 AM
One is tempted to refer to the Coolidge effect here.
Posted by: athelas at Mar 24, 2009 10:42:34 AM
i thought it was generally known that women read a lot or more books than men, or more precisely that a larger percentage of women reads a lot? All those effects follow simply from that.
Posted by: Zamfir at Mar 24, 2009 10:52:08 AM
Substance is more important than quantity. I would say 90% of what people read is crap.
Posted by: jorod at Mar 24, 2009 11:06:48 AM
Jorod, sure, but how would you find out the good bits without reading a lot? I know people who try only to read the good 10%, reading only classics and critically approved works. Of course, they do not develop any personal taste at all.
People who read a lot on the other hand tend to read both the crap and the good ones.
Posted by: Zamfir at Mar 24, 2009 11:23:45 AM
Seems accurate for my household. My daughter and I read things quickly, my husband takes longer. My son is too young to read anything long enough to make a distinction.
I don't know if I agree with the theory above that content changes the habit. A little, but not totally. My husband doesn't read anything fast, fiction or non-fiction. He has no problem marking a page in a novel he's enjoying and coming back later. I will read instructional books more slowly than novels, but I will still try to get through it as quickly as possible - usually no more than a week, depending on the subject. I read other non-fiction almost as quickly as novels. I'd read a novel in one sitting if I could get away with it.
We all like having shelves of books around, including the kids. We tend to buy multiple books in one or two purchases and then spend a few months reading them, so there are usually a few we haven't opened yet. There are more books on the shelves that my husband has not read than there are those that I haven't, but part of that is based on taste - I tend to buy more books for myself because I read faster, and they're not always books he wants to read.
Posted by: Tracy at Mar 24, 2009 11:54:26 AM
An observation I've made in over a decade of train commuting is that the books women read are, more often than not, romance novels or other sorts of lowbrow fiction. In other words, the sort of books that can be devoured quickly. I'll also point out that what with the cost and time of commuting by train, most of these junk-reading women are likely to have well-paid, responsible jobs.
Posted by: Peter at Mar 24, 2009 12:54:32 PM
on one hand... no no no I'm female and read mostly non-fiction and some literary fiction, not idiotic romances blah blah blah...
on the other hand... I've always equated female time spent reading romance novels with male time spent looking at porn...?
Posted by: ami at Mar 24, 2009 1:29:29 PM
I am not a fast reader. I have read some books on the first few days I got hold of them. I read others months or years after I got hold of them. In my case, it pays to keep unread books growing ripe on the shelves.
Posted by: Yan at Mar 24, 2009 2:13:35 PM
My wife reads mysteries and almost nothing else (she'll read a bodice-ripper if desperate). She's also partial to logic puzzle magazines.
I read history, economics, political philosophy, biographies, computer science, math, science fiction, popularizations of science, and (!) cookbooks. (I'm the house-husband and chief cook & bottlewasher.)
She finishes all her books. By the time I'm through the first 50 pages or so, I'm in a position to know whether or not I should finish a book. The remaining years of my life are too precious to waste reading a book to the end and then thinking "There's X hours of my life I'll never have back."
The last book I read that I should have stopped after 50 pages was "Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History" by James A. Morone. Interesting thesis that was treated in a tendentious and overblown fashion, and ultimately beaten to death. In fact, 50 pages (a very short Master's thesis or a long graduate position paper) would have been about the right length.
Of course I don't finish all my books. The unworthy ones get recycled (can't bring myself to sell 'em to some other unsuspecting soul...)
Posted by: Garth Wood at Mar 24, 2009 2:35:33 PM
I suspect most of this effect is explained by, as zamfir noted, women read more and are more likely to be frequent readers, and Peter's anecdata w/r/t women and romance/lowbrow fiction.
I admit to owning a number of books I haven't read and have barely looked at. I tend to read all, or nearly all of them, but continue to check out and read different books from the library. Imposed deadlines and novelty matter, somewhat irrational though that may be.
Posted by: Tom at Mar 24, 2009 2:46:08 PM
I'm a woman who reads constantly. I'm also in school and read for professional licensing. Because I have to read textbooks such as C++ programming books and economics tomes for classes/exams, when I read in my spare time I like to pick up "fluff" novels, ranging from romances to science-fiction. I particularly enjoy urban fantasy. It's all about escapism.
Compared to my boyfriend, who can't finish a book to save his life, though he has quite an impressive bookshelf, I'd be prepared (anecdotally) to support the results of the study. I'd be more confident in the overall quality of the study if I knew what organization actually conducted it.
I don't think there's anything wrong with "lowbrow" fiction. You're still learning sentence structure, grammar, and possibly even new vocabulary. Readers should try to supplement entertainment reading with more challenging reading, but if they don't, shouldn't we at least be happy that the time spent reading isn't spent watching the latest nasty reality show on TV?
Posted by: deep6 at Mar 24, 2009 3:16:30 PM
Ever since college I have had a very difficult time finding fictional books interesting to read. Instead I read mainly in history, science, technology, and geography. These books I almost never read from beginning to end; I always skip around quite a bit.
I don't have very many books that I have never opened, but I have many books which I have opened and then deigned to read very much of.
Posted by: Curt Fischer at Mar 24, 2009 5:17:18 PM
man oh man there's some blunt commentary on here. like laugh out loud ridiculously hilarious generalizations people are throwing out.
allow me the pleasure of highlighting this:
"When my wife is reading a book, I go about my business. When I am reading a book, my wife gets a spontaneous insatiable urge to chat"
"Who taught women to read? They should stick to important stuff like washing my clothes"
"...the books women read are, more often than not, romance novels or other sorts of lowbrow fiction."
...small sample size!
also something to note, the article came from the telegraph. i am assuming the poll was conducted in the UK as well. and i hypothesize the culture of reading in the US and UK vary drastically. i dont know any guys in california that read shakespeare to woo women. but then again my age might have something to do with it.
Posted by: hern at Mar 24, 2009 5:35:26 PM
Of course women finish books quicker. They have all that free time when they're not cooking or cleaning.
Posted by: MW at Mar 24, 2009 5:46:25 PM
"When my wife is reading a book, I go about my business. When I am reading a book, my wife gets a spontaneous insatiable urge to chat."
Ha, just like my wife. It was impossible to read with her around until our daughter was born.
Posted by: Careless at Mar 24, 2009 6:34:05 PM
I think its just a matter o differing taste in leisure reading. leisure reading seems to be the kind of thing a women would enjoy more than a man would. It might just be a principle of enjoyment. most of the big time readers I have met in my life time are women. On another stand point it might be do to differances in brain structure. Women might find the action of reading enjoyable because they have a better ability to lock in to what they are reading.
Posted by: rg at Mar 24, 2009 9:16:24 PM
It might just be a matter of what is leisurable. Most of the big times readers that I have meet in my life are women. It just seems like the kind of thing that the male brian doesn't really enjoy or develope an enjoyment for until later in life. It might also have to do with brian structure. Women might be able to read faster or find, on average, that reading is enjoyable because of a differant perspective in the action of reading
Posted by: rg at Mar 24, 2009 9:22:51 PM
Of course women read differently, they do everything else differently, why not reading as well. Personally I can relate to the other men that were surveyed as to the fact that I have numerous books that have been given to me or that I planned on reading but have never gotten around to. For me, I am a rather slow reader taking my time to try and understand everything, and with so much going on in my life I seldom have enough time or care to finish a book unless it is extremely interesting. Meanwhile, many women that I know are able to sit down in one day and read an entire book. Part of that too is in how both sex relaxes. I prefer to relax by taking a nap, watching a movie, or doing something active outdoors. While women can get all of the peace they need by simply reading a simple book.
Looking at reading and the difference between men and women can be related to business. Overall women have a higher utility than men for each book. But still men will buy the books, just not read them. Therefor pricing remains rather uniform since both sexes will still buy the books. The only hint I would suggest for publishers is to make books that appeal to men, contain more pictures and appealing graphics on the cover and beginning chapters. Since, according to the search, men will more than likely never finish the book.
Posted by: Jarrett Frazier at Mar 24, 2009 11:55:59 PM
Something like half of people who read *at all* are women who only read romance novels. Once you eliminate them, the sexes are surely more similar.
Posted by: Douglas Knight at Mar 25, 2009 1:11:07 AM
I stand by those statistics. I have read nearly 45 books this year, most of them genre fiction of one kind or another, but also some non-fiction and poetry. Not much Shakespeare(I've momorized and performed Shakespeare, just not this year). For escapism purposes, I can usually read 1.5 romances per day (other genres are slower; it takes me a few days to finish a Patrick O'Brian book for example). My husband has read 2 deep books so far this year.
On the other hand, I've been in the middle of _The Lucifer Effect_ since 2007, and I do intend to complete it some day, so I have all kinds of reading patterns.
Posted by: Joy at Mar 25, 2009 3:57:11 PM
As a few other commenters have suggested, I'd be surprised if these results hold up very well when you control for *what* is being read. Of course, how one reads and what one reads is all mixed up together, so its not clear what one would learn from that (something though, I think).
Posted by: alex at Mar 26, 2009 5:02:20 PM
Curt echoes my sentiments on reading. I recently read that men not only read more, but buy more books on history and the sciences.
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