The demographics of Weibo users in China

Ole Hexel , Max Planck Institut für demografische Forschung
Wenqing Qian, Fudan University
Emilio Zagheni , Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)
Ridhi Kashyap, University of Oxford
Ingmar Weber, Qatar Computing Research Institute

We provide original data on the demographic characteristics of users of Sina Weibo, a Chinese-language Twitter-like platform with 0.25 billion daily users and 0.5 billion monthly users. Previous research on digital gender gaps has focused on a small number of platforms that are pre-dominantly English-speaking and headquartered in the United States. We provide data on the entire Sina Weibo user population at great spatial resolution, by using audience estimates provided to potential advertisers. We find that women are overrepresented among Sina Weibo users, especially in locations with (comparatively) low sex ratios, high education levels, and large populations. We explore the reasons for this differential participation by exploiting geographical variation. The full paper aims to document associations with demographic factors, gender inequalities in offline domains like education and the labor market, and indicators of economic and social development. Subnational measures of gender inequality are often limited to the highest administrative level. Combining data from Sina Weibo with results from the 7th population census at the prefecture level unlocks a new level of detail in describing gender gaps in China.

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 Presented in Session P1. Postercafe