The UK internet’s already rather balanced gender composition will edge even closer to 50/50 toward 2013, a new eMarketer report says. But the sexes use online media in slightly different ways, it says - men are more likely to use VOD and women show a greater proclivity toward search engines…

From the report: “It is noteworthy that men access some categories of content - including music, multimedia, podcasts and RSS feeds - more frequently than women. The proliferation of online TV and video offerings, including the BBC iPlayer, has given all internet users in the UK further incentives to view content on the web, but men take more advantage of these options.

“When shopping online, men often gravitate toward specialty sites to research products and services, while women head to search engines. Men in the UK have also demonstrated greater engagement with the mobile web than women.” The report, compiled by a woman, also says British men “may” be using the web more during the economic downturn as they tend to be breadwinners.

There’s little quantitative analysis to back up the claims in the part of the report we received, which does say the UK internet is made up 51.1 percent by men and 48.9 percent by women.

(Photo: vagawi)