Do women type faster than men?

No. In one large phone study, women and men typed at about the same speed. In a U.S. subsample, men were slightly faster, by a few words per minute. Neither result shows women typing faster. No keyboard study we checked reports typing speed by gender, so the keyboard answer is open.

On phones, women and men type at about the same speed

In the full phone sample, women averaged 36.0 words per minute (see words per minute) and men 36.1 ¹. That is a difference of 0.1 words per minute, with a Cohen's d of 0.003 ¹. The authors describe the two averages as similar, and the women's speeds were less spread out ².

In the U.S. subsample, men are slightly faster

The full phone sample was mostly female ³, so the U.S. subsample, which is close to an even split, is the more balanced comparison, though both are volunteers. In that subsample, women averaged 34.6 words per minute ⁴ and men averaged 37.4 ⁵. The authors give a Cohen's d of 0.22 for the difference ⁶.

Cohen's d measures a gap in standard-deviation units. By the usual rule of thumb, 0.2 is a small effect, so most typists in the two groups overlap. A gap of a few words per minute is small next to the spread within each group.

Why the two results differ, and what the keyboard data say

The full sample and the U.S. subsample give different answers because they are different groups. The U.S. subsample is the better guide for a general population of phone typists, but it is still one study of volunteers who chose to take a typing test.

The large online keyboard study recorded its volunteers' gender: 52.7 percent were female and 41.5 percent male ⁷. Its comparisons, however, split typists by speed and by training, not by gender ⁸. So that paper does not report whether speed differs by gender on a keyboard. Anyone who says the keyboard gap is known is going beyond the evidence we found.

Gender is a small factor next to age and practice

The gender gap is small next to the factors these studies do report. The phone age groups differ far more than the two sexes do, as the age question shows. Training is also one of the comparisons in the keyboard study ⁸, and practice changes speed at any age.

What this means for you

1. Do not use gender to set a target. Speeds vary widely within each group, so one person's gender says little about their speed.
2. Compare with a percentile instead. A percentile shows where a score sits among typists in the same reference group. See what percentile your typing speed is.
3. Pick the right device and test. A phone score belongs with phone data, and a keyboard score with keyboard data. See phone typing speed.
4. Practice to change your own speed. Practice moves your score, and gender does not. Touch typing and how to type faster cover the methods.

For a single number to check your own speed against, see is 40 WPM good. For the whole subject, start with the typing speed overview.