Fiction and Nonfiction, boys and girls

From a recent discussion about fiction and nonfiction and the stereotypes of gendered reading. Here is some information that was collected and shared.

Because we define terms and concepts differently (ex. Are YA books the books that young adults read or are they a marketing category of literary fiction we choose to call YA?) we often end up talking at cross-purposes. When we speak about reading are we including books and non-books (magazines, newspapers, comics, text messages)? When we talk about reading are we talking about voluntary elective reading or are we including reading related to work and study? Regrettably these distinctions are important and either are elided or not addressed in a lot of studies.

For example, there is the stereotype that boys don’t read and when they do read, they primarily prefer nonfiction. Almost as a derivative of this first stereotype, there is then also the corollary stereotype that girls don’t read nonfiction.

Both of these are true with very particular definitions and wrong when loosely stated.

While relying primarily on US data, I have included data from a couple of robust recent studies from the UK and Australia. Their reading patterns at the macro level are close to those in the US and there is granular detail in those recent studies that is likely reflective of the US as well (or is consistent with smaller, less robust studies from the US)

Summary: Boys read less than girls, starting roughly equal in grade school and the gap widening through adulthood. Boys that read only one or the other, read about as much fiction as nonfiction but girls read a good deal more fiction than nonfiction. The plurality/near majority of both girls and boys read both fiction and nonfiction. Girls tend to be more catholic in the range of their reading (by f/nf as well as by subject, protagonist, etc.) Boys demonstrate a significant focus in their preferences. While boys and girls have a majority overlap in the titles they elect to read, the overlap is largest in K and least in 12th grade. The books that they elect to read that do not overlap conform to traditional stereotypes with boys preferring adventure/action and girls preferring relationships/romance.

Stipulated that anybody can read anything they wish and that there is no normative basis for prescribing what people ought to be reading. Any and all recommendations to a young reader are ideally based on a deep knowledge of the child’s reading ability, context, and interests.


Do males read less than females?

Yes, particularly if we are focusing on elective reading of books (as opposed to reading required for work or study). It appears to start out in equal proportions as an infant but as they grow older the pattern of females spending more time reading electively grows.

64% of adult women read at least one book in 2012 (and 56 percent read at least one literary book), compared to only 45% of men (only 37 percent read at least one literary book). Source.

While women spend more time reading than males, the gap is not quite as wide as might be assumed, particularly given differences in labor force participation rates. A study from Australia provides some illumination of the impact of labor force participation rates on reading patterns. Just as in the US, males read less than females, however, from that study, 77% of females read for pleasure but only 66% of males. In contrast, 51% of males read for work or study but only 36% of females. Source.

In total, in the US, men spend about 95 hours a year reading (elective and non-elective) and women spend 139 hours, nearly 50% more. Males spend 0.25 hours per day and Females 0.36 hours per day on weekdays reading and 0.29 and 0.44 on weekends and holidays. Source.

Interestingly, while they do spend more time reading to children, women spend only 33% more time reading to children than do men, Males spend 0.03 hours per day and Females 0.04 hours per day, [Source] [0.05 and 0.07 respectively when children are under 6 years of age]

There is a material enthusiasm gap. 69% of females “really like reading” whereas only 41% of males respond so, a 68% gap. Source.

I have not been able to find robust empirical data for gender differentiated reading volumes for younger ages but the patchy small studies that I have come across are consistent with the adult patterns, particularly in high school.

Do males prefer nonfiction over fiction?

No. There are about an equal number of males (27%) who read only fiction as there are who read only nonfiction (28%) and 45% read both fiction and nonfiction. The appearance of males preferring nonfiction probably arises in part from comparison with females where there is a marked preference for fiction with 29% of females reading only fiction while only 17% read only nonfiction.

Approximately 50% of the population does no elective reading in a given year.

Among the 50% that do electively read, 23% read only fiction, 19% read only nonfiction, and 58% read both fiction and nonfiction. Source.

Among males, 27% read only fiction, 28% read only non-fiction and 45% read both. Among females, 29% read only fiction, 17% read only non-fiction and 53% read both. Source.

In terms of fiction and nonfiction, 80% of readers of fiction are female, 20% are male. Source 1 and Source 2.

Males read for discovery and knowledge acquisition about 25% more than females. Females read for escape and relaxation about 30% more than males. Source.

Are there gender patterns in reading form/genre/topic?

Yes.

The widest gap occurs in the history genre, which 40% of male readers but only 23% of female readers say they have read in the past year. There is also a decided male bias in the non-fiction genres of political (25% compared to 10%), current affairs (20% compared to 9%), and business (16% to 12%). Source. Other categories with 25% or greater male interest over female interest include sport, science, technology and atlas/dictionary. In all four categories, male interest is actually 2-4 times that of female. Source.

The most significantly female-oriented non-fiction genre is self-help, which 19% of female readers and 12% of male readers have read in the past year. Source. Other categories where female reading interest is 25% or greater than male interest include biographies, gardening, cooking, and hobbies/crafts. Source.

Are there gender patterns in title preferences among youth readers?

Yes. Renaissance Learning 2014 report, What Kids Are Reading has data on 10m school age children and their (supposedly) elective reading. I recognize the shortcomings of that program but it does cover 10m of 50m students and it is the only source of which I am aware that offers any sort of insight as what kids actually read versus what others think they ought to read. Source.

Taking Grade 12 top 20 most read nonfiction books, there are only 13 that are common between boys and girls and those thirteen titles are differently ranked. For example, Blind Side: Evolution of a Game is number 7 on the boy’s list but 19 on the girl’s.

Of the 7 different books on each list, the seven boy books are overwhelmingly sports/military. The seven girl books are overwhelmingly relationship/dependency/dysfunction.

Taking the Grade 12 top 20 most read books (i.e. fiction - only one nonfiction cracks the top 20 list, Night by Eli Wiesel on the boys list), thirteen are common between boys and girls.

Of the seven different books on each list, for boys, one is nonfiction, and four are adventure. For girls, five of the seven books are romance/relationship.

So basically a 60-65% overlap in interests but the differences conform to stereotype.

Are these gaps and patterns unique to the US or are they common among other countries?

While the numbers vary a bit by country, the patterns and gaps are common among OECD countries. The reading performance gaps as measured by educational tests between male and female students exists at just about all ages in all OECD countries and has been in evidence since the 1970s.


Are there other gender based differences?

Yes probably, but I cannot document other than direct experience and conversations with librarians. I have the strong impression that the YA category has muddied the reading waters. The overwhelming majority of YA is not age bracketed but rather the marketing category of literary fiction which is in turn read primarily by adult women. Among 12-18 year olds, the YA that is read is read substantially by females. The upshot is that for girls, with a documented predilection for fiction, there is a logical transition from picture books to chapter books to YA to adult. For boys, with a greater (proportionally) interest in nonfiction, there is a much larger percentage that go from chapter books straight to adult books. I think this is the blind spot in many conversations. Is Hot Zone a YA book? Clearly not. Is it read by YA (12-18)? Very much so. Is it read more by male young adults than female young adults? It appears so to me and those with whom I have discussed the issue (generically around nonfiction titles). How big is the population of books that are read by young adults which are not designated as YA books? I don’t know but my sense is that it is large.

In the Renaissance data, of the 27 titles among the 20 top boys and girls books read by 12th graders, only 13 might be considered YA (for example on ambiguity – Twilight; yes YA per publisher, no per author. I included it as yes in the count). This implies that about 50% of what young adults read are actually adult books.

There has been a thread that we need more YA nonfiction. But I wonder if that is the case. If boys are transitioning straight to adult nonfiction, is that in any way a bad thing? It is not clear to me that it is. Probably virtually everyone of us on this list serv (assuming a certain age) grew up in that environment, i.e. before the marketing category that became YA. Might there be a benefit to easier YA nonfiction books being available? Perhaps, but it is not clear to me that there is and Sully’s publisher letter would indicate that the benefit isn’t seen to be there commercially. Why would you go for a YA version of Kon-tiki, The Great Escape, A Night to Remember, 60 Seconds Over Tokyo, Krakatoa, etc. when the adult versions are accessible and gripping? Alternatively, are there any YA nonfiction books that come close to the caliber (and likely longevity) of those titles?


Are there agreed reasons for the differences in gender reading patterns?

No. The UK just completed a study on male reading gaps. Their conclusions follow. Source.

The home and family environment, where girls are more likely to be bought books and taken to the library, and where mothers are more likely to support and role model reading;

The school environment, where teachers may have a limited knowledge of contemporary and attractive texts for boys and where boys may not be given the opportunity to develop their identity as a reader through experiencing reading for enjoyment;

Male gender identities which do not value learning and reading as a mark of success.

Reading for pleasure needs to be an integral element in a school’s teaching and learning strategy and teachers need to be supported in their knowledge of relevant quality texts that will engage all pupils. There is a specific danger that a predominantly female workforce will unconsciously privilege texts that are more attractive to girls.

However, that is but one among many reports. There is no strong consensus. The issue of female dominated education environments possibly creating a mismatch with young male reader interests is a pretty commonly identified issue but the evidence is substantially anecdotal and logical. There aren’t many empirical studies that have been conducted to confirm or refute.


Are there institutional barriers to greater access to nonfiction?

I suspect so. My experience is that in general librarians tend to be much more knowledgeable and aware of front-list books and literary fiction than they are of back-list and non-fiction. This makes sense.

If boys are going straight to adult nonfiction, that is outside the youth librarian bailiwick (obviously might not be true for many particular librarians).

Literary writing in nonfiction exists in large quantity but it is overwhelmingly in the backlist which is a pretty big beast. There might be a hundred adult titles on WWII published in a given year but the number of them which are youth accessible and which are also written in literary fashion is quite a bit smaller.

Recommending quality nonfiction books requires as a predicate not only literary awareness (how well is it written) but also domain knowledge of the subject (how accurately is it written). With literary fiction, domain knowledge is less critical. The consequence is that nonfiction books are necessarily less well served on average. The population that have Variable X (literary awareness) AND Variable Y (Domain Knowledge) must necessarily be smaller than the population that only has Variable X.

The divisibility of nonfiction is greater than fiction. I have not figured out a way to define or measure this but see it a lot. Perhaps it is better said that the fungiblity of nonfiction is less than that of fiction. If you want a good literary nonfiction narrative based on WWII in the Pacific there are a couple of dozen books to choose from. Once you have exhausted those, there is little else. You can recommend WWII nonfiction literary treatments of Europe but the capacity to port the reader’s interest from one theater to the other is often surprisingly low. This may have less to do with the nature of nonfiction and more to do with the doggedness of interest of male readers but my sense is that there is an issue of fungibility. You can see this in the low penetration rates of nonfiction books compared to fiction in the Renaissance Learning 2014 report, What Kids Are Reading. Source.

For example, the top three nonfiction titles among 11th and 12th graders were Black Boy by Wright, Walden by Thoreau, and 1776 by McCullough read by 0.08%, 0.04% and 0.02% of 11th and 12th graders respectively. In contrast, the top three fiction titles were The Great Gatsby, The Scarlett Letter and The Cask of Amontillado read by 6.82%, 3.06%, and 1.91% respectively. So the top three fiction books were read by roughly 85 times as many 11th & 12th graders as the top three nonfiction. In other words, the reading population for a given nonfiction title is much smaller than a comparable given fiction title.

It should be noted that the differentials between nonfiction and fiction intensity are much smaller (still there, just smaller) at the K-1 level than the 11-12 level. At K-1 the ratios are more like 10 times the readership for fiction over nonfiction (by ranking) versus the 85 times at the older grades. This can be read that as children age their nonfiction interests become much more particular versus their fiction interests.