DOI: 10.36347/sjebm.2018.v05i05.010

Pages: 413-421

Internet has evolved rapidly and affects every aspect of our life. There are considerable amount of research discussing on gender difference in internet/ICT access and use. Some find that man and women are significantly different in terms of perception, skill, and purpose of internet use, while others argue that this gap is decreasing and in some cases women are more in internet use. This study tests this finding through empirical examination. We aim to investigate whether there is gender difference in internet usage pattern and what might be the reasons why both genders use them differently. A sample of 176 university students of Bangladesh are analyzed using logit models. The analysis surprisingly reveals that except for the purpose of gaming and commercial transaction, there is insignificant difference between students of both genders in overall internet usage pattern. Men report greater preference for gaming than women do, whereas women’s use of internet is higher for commercial transaction than the men. We also find that unlike most past research, there is no significant difference in the level of ICT self-efficacy between men and women. Only, academic background proved to have some association with self-efficacy. Students from IS arena are more likely to have higher degree of self-efficacy than the students from non-IS field. Further, our research explores positive relationship between parental support and ICT self-efficacy for both male and female students. This result provides researchers, business practitioners and policy makers a new insight regarding gender and pattern of internet use.