Don’t be put-off by the title

Comparing Socio-economic, Gender, Life Stage, and Rural-Urban Internet Access and Use in Eight Countries. This sounds pretty heavy going stuff but it is an excellent piece of research if you want to understand how Internet access is determined by socio-economic status in terms of income, education, gender, life stage, and geographic location. Not a document to read cover-to-cover but excellent for the research library

Some of the data about Internet users in the UK:

In 2002 there were 22 million people connected to the Internet which represents 45% of British households.

The gap in Internet access between the highest and the lowest income groups has grown from 29% in 1999, to 42% in 2003.

The gender divide has been narrowing in the U.K. 61% of British men and 55% of British women had access to the Internet in 2002.

89% of those aged between 16 and 24 were connected to the Internet in 2002, compared with 14% of people aged 65 or older.

What makes this report so useful is that it takes a consistent approach to the research in each of the eight countries (UK, USA, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, Korea and Mexico).

You can download an analysis of the age profile information, by country, from my web site. Analysis of Internet use by age.