The Literary Divide: Singapore's Gendered Reading Landscape

Do men read enough? Is it a problem?

The below article is an addendum to my recently published article on Jom, Recapturing the reading spirit in Singapore. Do consider getting a subscription to Jom and checking the article out before reading the below!

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Due to space constraints, I had to omit one interesting observation from my research for the article: At every book club or reading-related event that I attended, there were more women than men. Sometimes, the ratio wasn’t even close. At a Bookworm Banter event, I was the only man when it started. Another guy walked in late, and tapped me on my shoulder–it was a friend from university (and we had not made plans to go together)! I’ve also analysed insta-stories from the Book Bar Instagram account of subsequent Bookworm Banter, and the gender divide appears to have persisted.

This was also raised by my interviewees featured in the article. Sarah, a new book club friend I made at the event and a frequent attendee, confirmed that women tended to outnumber men, as did Alex, owner of the Book Bar. Elfa from the No Readgrets Book Club said they tended to see ‘a lot more’ men attending when they discussed non-fiction books or if the theme of the book they were discussing was more ‘gritty’.

Another more nuanced observation: at a book club hosted by Rice Media earlier this year, there were more women than men as usual, but the ratio was relatively more equal than others I’d been to. When we went around the room to introduce what we had been reading, the difference was quite stark. Overall, the men were more likely to say they were reading non-fiction like politics, history, and self-help books (the ‘serious books’, if you will), while the women were more likely to say they were reading fiction (with many mentions of ‘romantasy’ books). The men in the room who said they were reading fiction were more likely to be reading manga or science fiction (myself included).

With my admittedly small sample size, this leads me to formulate two hypotheses:

1. Women read more than men

2. Women read more fiction than men

What does the data say?

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First, a look at global statistics:

• According to Deloitte Insights, this gendered divide to reading is replicated across geographies and different survey methodologies.

• A US survey conducted in 2022 suggests that there is a 20-point difference between the percentages of men (27.2%) and women (46.9) who read fiction, and it has remained consistent since 2012.

• An Australian study in 2023 showed that women are more likely to read for pleasure compared to men, though the gap was more significant in age groups 30 years and above. The gap was also wider in upper/upper middle class demographics compared to the lower/working class, however the lower/working class demographics had lower overall rates of reading for pleasure.

• A UK YouGov poll in 2025 found that 66 percent of women read or listened to a book in the past year, compared to 53 percent of men. Of this group of readers, women were more likely to read fiction (63 percent) than men (46 percent).

The data for Singapore is much more sparse. A 2007 study by NTU researchers found that among 440 upper-primary school students, only 36.3 percent of boys participated in leisure reading daily, compared to 57.8 percent of girls. Interestingly, a 2021 NTU Master’s thesis studying gender differences in leisure reading found that gender gaps were found in Chinese reading enjoyment (favouring girls), but not in English.

Another study by a group of NTU researchers in 2019 found that among 4830 students aged 12 to 17 from five secondary schools (the age group when reading habits start to decline), more girls reported they liked to read almost daily (38.7 percent) compared to boys (34.2 percent), but both genders reported they liked to read for leisure equally. Crucially, the researchers highlighted a troubling statistic: 17.5 percent of boys reported they did not read at all (compared to 7.6 percent of girls).

We definitely need more research on this phenomenon. We could start by publishing gender-disaggregated data: for example, in the latest National Reading Habits Study on Adults conducted every three years by NLB, the results for questions on frequency of reading or time spent on reading across genders are not stated. Interestingly, results on what topics Singaporeans like to read are segregated by gender, suggesting that NLB does have the data.

What might be the cause?

So, we can say that the data does trend towards showing men read less than women, even if the gap may not be as stark as some believe. And there are some differences in the types of books they read. But why is this so?

On the question of why men read less than women, some research suggests that reading habits are formed in childhood and/or adolescence, and since men read less, children are less exposed to male reading role models. Fathers are less likely to read to their sons than their daughters, and so reading can come to be seen as a ‘feminine’ activity, compared to other activities like video games or sports. The research on this is sparse, and we need more studies on why men might read less than women, with studies focusing on children/teenagers.

One conjecture could be trends in higher education that reinforce this divide. In the US, there are growing numbers of female undergraduates compared to male, and if you assume that university graduates are more likely to cultivate a reading habit (though this assumption may not fully hold; see my Jom article!), you may see more women reading compared to men.

In Singapore, these numbers are relatively equal (with males taking a slight lead in recent years). However, men outnumber women in faculties such as engineering and computing, and women outnumber men in humanities and social sciences, communication, and education. It’s obvious which faculties might prioritise reading more. Couple that with a constant focus on which disciplines pay more, and you get a higher education system where reading-heavy disciplines are disincentivised, or at the very least, not prioritised.

Why might men favour non-fiction then? It’s not entirely intuitive–many of the best fiction writers are men, and they span across genres (Tolstoy, King, Dahl, Shakespeare, Tolkien, to name a few). I’ve not done the math, but I daresay there are more male main characters in fiction. It may be more understandable why more women read genres such as romance, given that there are more female romance authors, but Nicholas Sparks has made a pretty good career of himself!

Some men have said they prefer non-fiction because its easier to digest–what you see is what you get, compared to fiction when you sometimes have to get through quite a few pages to get stuck in. Others have said fiction feels more ‘frivolous’. However, a 2017 Australian study that examined two reading habits surveys found that the trend of men preferring non-fiction was not strong.

There might be something to the frivolity thesis. In the 2021 National Reading Habits Study, it was notable that politics and current affairs was the top non-fiction topic read by men of all age groups (followed by Singapore-related information, business and finance, sports, health and fitness, and self-help). Among women, they preferred self-help, health and fitness, cooking, and fashion, beauty and grooming non-fiction, with different age groups ranking different topics top. This may indicate that men are more likely to seek out content that they can intellectualise about, while women are more willing to seek out diverse content.

Another factor may be that in fiction-centered book clubs, there’s more of a focus on emotions and reflecting on how your personal experiences link to the book. Couple that with the generalised stereotype of men not talking about their emotions as often as women, and we can see why these book clubs might not be as appealing. Stick to ‘serious books’, then!

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Why is this important?

Going beyond the pragmatic need to read more to maintain our literacy levels and analytical skills, it’ll be interesting to see how this gender divide in reading may impact sociopolitical discourse. If we accept Benedict Anderson’s theory of imagined communities, our social construction of a nation, with its component ideologies, was because of ‘print capitalism’, where capitalist entrepreneurs published books and media in a common vernacular, leading to a common discourse and national consciousness. As such, books go beyond just being a vessel of knowledge–they shape our shared values as a people and as a nation.

This is vital at a time when we may be seeing diverging political opinions between males and females (in layperson parlance, men believe that women are becoming ‘too woke’), with a prominent example being South Korea. Interestingly, Singapore seems to buck the trend according to several studies, with women apparently trending towards being more conservative (defined as supporting social hierarchy, order and tradition). Nevertheless, there are several areas where women appear to be more progressive than men, particularly on issues such as gender equality (more men believe gender equality has been reached in Singapore compared to women, with 57% of men believing that men are now being discriminated against, compared to 29% of women).

If men read less, will this influence their value systems, and hinder their ability to find common ground with the other gender in society? If, as research suggests, reading fiction increases your capacity for empathy, to walk in others' shoes, will a lack of fiction-reading amongst men lead to greater intolerance? Are we to leave our impressions of society and sociopolitical development to the TikTok algorithm?

Personally, even if there is evidence to suggest a gendered divide in reading statistics, I think harping too much on it may inadvertently reinforce the idea that men don’t read, leading reading to be seen even more as a ‘feminised’ activity. The fiction-non-fiction divide may also be slightly overblown. Try holding a sci-fi or fantasy book club, and see how the gender ratio there is then. I think it’s more about the types of books that are marketed (having taken a gander at some of the popular ‘romantasy’ books, some of the more…spicy parts were definitely not in the fantasy books I read growing up!), and the types of social activities that promote reading certain types of books.

It all goes back then, to how we view reading. If we treat reading as just something we do to get good grades, then it’s no wonder kids don’t cultivate a habit of reading for leisure. If reading is just a means to an end, then isn’t it better to focus on the more ‘serious’ books, especially if I’m in a field or discipline that has no use for fiction?

But if we start to promote spaces for reading as an outlet for social connection, and give people time to discover their favourite books away from the pragmatic imperatives, then we may see reading rates overall start to recover, and the different genders explore more diverse content. To me, a gendered divide in reading is not a major cause for concern, as long as we see more diverse reading communities. And at the end of the day, it will be about what we as a society value in a written tome, that shapes the trajectory of our reading habits.