Study shows that young women go to the cinema more often than men

A new study in the US has shown that young women go to the cinema more often than young men of the same age group.

Female movie fans between the ages of 15 and 24 logged two million cinema admissions per week, compared with 1.7 million young men.

The stats have emerged despite male protagonist characters generally dominating movie output, and the majority of mainstream movies leaning towards what are seen as traditionally male interest subjects.

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“Female moviegoers ages 15-24 continuously and consistently lead in admissions compared to males of the same age, even with superhero movies and blockbusters with a majority male audience,” the report from Webedia Movies Pro and Vertigo Research reads.

“Our findings suggest that women - just like older audiences- are very active moviegoers regardless of whether they are targeted by films or not. The movie industry has a lot to gain by bringing more content targeted to these active, yet untapped, audiences.”

It is also noted in the research that audiences aged 50 and over were responsible for more cinema admissions than men aged 25 and over.

The study was undertaken from March 2018 to February 2019, using a sample of 100,000 weekly movie-goers in the US.

“On average, only 30 percent of the cast of movies in the top 30 films of moviegoers 3-14 and 15-25 were women,” said Julien Marcel, CEO of Webedia Movies Pro.

“In the top 30 of audiences above 50, only 25 percent of the top cast were the same age or older than these moviegoers. However, in both cases, the films that fared better among these untapped audiences - and where they consisted of a majority of the audience - were films that boasted a higher number of female or older actors.

“One of the keys to increasing the turn-out of these already active moviegoers is to create more films in which they are represented.”

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Despite the findings, another study produced in February this year found that representation of women in films is actually getting worse, not better.

A report from the Centre for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found that Women represented just 36 per cent of major characters in film in 2018 – a decline of one percent from the 37 percent seen in 2017.

Only 35 per cent of films releases last year included 10 or more female speaking roles, compared to 82 per cent of movies had at least 10 male characters with speaking roles.