The US Internet population remains firmly skewed toward females.
In 2008, 100.4 million females and 93.5 million males will go online at least once a month, according to eMarketer's latest estimates. In 2012 females will outnumber males online by more than 8 million.
Females will make up 51.8% of all US Internet users in 2008.
One reason for the difference is that there are more females than males in the US population: 154.5 million in 2008 compared with 149.4 million males, according to the US Census Bureau.
In fact, teenage girls are the driving force behind increased female Internet usage in the US. In the adult population, females are slightly less likely to go online than males: eMarketer projects that 68% of adult females will do so in 2008, compared with 70% of adult males.
In 2008, 68% of all females ages 3+ and 65% of males 3+ will go online at least once a month.
Young women are prolific Internet users. According to data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project cited in a recent article in The New York Times, 35% of online teen girls write blogs, compared with just 20% of online teen boys. Teen girls are also more likely to use social network sites. Overall, 55% of teen online content creators are girls, Pew found.
The eMarketer UK Women Online report will be published this month. Click here to be notified when it is released.