Men vs. women reading novels

No, not in the book biz. Just wanted to know more about the survey being quoted by the NY Times. Which neglected to mention the % they quoted were for literature, which included novels, plays, and poetry. Not just novels.

I am sure most of the 16% difference between men and women reading at all is linked to men having a 10% higher participation in the work force rate and an average higher hours per year worked than women.

I have looked up the survey. Which answers many of your questions. Fiction is the most popular of all the categories for both men and women. The lower % of men is largely because reading any book is less popular for men than for women.

The % represent total of all men and women surveyed.
The decline in reading between 2017 and 2022 was nearly the same for men and women, and, as in previous years, more women than men read books last year (56.6% v. 40%).

Taking literature as a whole, which for the NEA includes novels, short stories, poetry, and plays, the decline in the share of men reading was more pronounced, down 5.7 percentage points from 2017, to 29.5%, while 49.2% of women read at least one piece of literature in 2022, down 3.3 percentage points from the previous study.

In the four major nonfiction categories, the decline in reading took what the NEA calls a “significant decline.”

In the biography and memoir category, the percentage of adults who read a book in the 12 months prior to July 2022 fell to 14.9%, from 20% in 2017. In history, 21.8% of adults read a book in the 2017 study period, compared to only 15.8% in 2022. And in the religion category (religious texts or books about religion or spirituality), 18.4% of adults reported reading a book in the 2022 survey period, down from 23% in 2017.

The only nonfiction category that saw readership rise was science (covering both books about science and technology), where participation increased from 12.9% in 2017 to 13.5% in 2022. It was also the only category of the four in which men had greater participation than women (14.9% v. 12.2%).

Another category that held up well in the recent period was graphic novels, where participation held even at 6.7% of all adults, with rates between men and women fairly even at 6.5% and 6.9%, respectively.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/93659-nea-finds-worrying-drop-in-reading-participation.html

I was a 70s child. I never saw my mother read a book of any kind. My dad read the odd one, always non fiction.

Now I read fiction. OH has a massive bookshelf full of fiction he never reads.

@BrezhnevsLuxuriantEyebrows I agree.

Would Harriet Potter by Joanna Rowling have sold so well?

This male / female reading issue also influences book choices in schools to the detriment of girls.

Teachers often have to choose something male orientated so that the boys will grudgingly engage because the girls are more likely to be compliant and put up
with material they may not particularly enjoy.

It makes me cross that girls input and choices are limited in order to support boys but of course this is the way of general adult life all too often as well.

Surely it's just personal preference - and as long as nobody is forced to read against their will, or denied the opportunity to read when they want to, it's all good. You may as well ask why so many fewer men choose to do knitting as a hobby than women do, when both sexes regularly wear clothes; or why so many more men obsess over football than women do.

Far more concerning to me is seeking to address the bizarre mindset - from as young an age as possible - that means that boys and men will frequently instantly discount the idea of reading a particular fiction book when the main character and/or the author is female. As in they would very happily read a book written by John Smith about a character called Andrew, but they would automatically disdain the exact same book written by Jane Smith about Andrea, as 'it's a woman's book; it's clearly not meant or suitable for me'.

I am fascinated by this question. I do wonder if there’s something in the fact that men are often (wrongly) conditioned to believe they shouldn’t be interested in inner, emotional lives (either their own or other people’s) and reading fiction is so much about that.

I'm a man but I don't know how representative I am for the male sex as a whole. But I don't find any of the three options in the OP as reflecting my viewpoint. They're all a bit reductive, to be honest.

I read a lot. I find I go through periods when I'm mostly reading fiction, and other periods when I'm mostly reading non-fiction.

The non-fiction tends to be history and science. When I was a young man I was always a science geek but an interest in history is something that's gradually built as I've got older. I think it's largely driven by a realisation that there's huge amounts of history that I only have a passing knowledge of and I want to know more. It's driven by the same interest I have in watching documentaries on TV or listening to them on the radio and podcasts.

Fiction very much scratches a different itch. As a (very likely overly) broad generalisation, non-fiction is more about things and fiction is more about people. Biographies blur the line between the two. It's the difference between watching a documentary about the holocaust and watching Schindler's List.

I've recently finished The Remains of the Day and just started reading Demon Copperhead. As they're both works of fiction I've no idea where they're going to take me but they're very much centered on personal experience and viewpoints. I find that fascinating.

I'm also halfway though Stasiland where I already knew the former East Germany was immense surveillance state but the book is fleshing out just how pervasive it was.

All that being said, I don't really care what types of books other people read. If you want to spend your time reading books about WWII or you want to fill it reading Mills & Boon then it's no skin off my nose either way.

That seems so low for both to be honest! I'm amazed so many people never read novels.

My dad only read non fiction when I was growing up (he was the main reader in our house). I followed in his footsteps till last year when I read DHs fave book (been married almost ten years, but had three kids pretty quickly so I’ve only just got round to it). It was the first non fiction book I’d read outside of school and I really feel like I’ve missed out!

I tried to get my dad to read it, as he’s the main person I talk to about books but he said he doesn’t read fiction because he thinks it’s a waste of time. He’s 72 now so probably won’t change. He very much reads for utility as he tends to read books around his hobbies. Occasionally I’ll get him to read a biography or autobiography but it’s very rare. I was very much of the opinion that non fiction was better than fiction and now I feel like a bit of knob for having such a weird little superiority complex 😂.