Variance by Age2

Home Internet access penetration has a similar generational aspect observed in Internet usage trends. Younger Canadians are considerably more connected than seniors, being both more likely to have household access and more likely to have a high-speed Internet connection [Table 7c].

  • Just slightly less than four in five Canadians less than 25 years of age (79 per cent) have home access; 53 per cent having high-speed.
  • By contrast, two in five seniors (40 per cent) have home access to the Internet; 14 per cent have high-speed access.

Variance by Gender

While not as pronounced as differences by age, Canadian men are not only more likely to have access than women, but are also more likely to take advantage of superior high-speed access options [Table 7c].

  • At 70 per cent and 42 per cent, men are significantly more likely to have home Internet access and have high-speed home Internet access than women (64 per cent and 33 per cent).

2 Age, gender, employment status and type are individual characteristics rather than descriptors of an entire household and are therefore not necessarily the most effective way to shed light on the presence of household technologies. After all, the presence of a retired individual in a household does not preclude other members from being students or full-time professionals. Despite this acknowledged limitation results do vary significantly by the age, gender, employment status and type and have been included in the analysis.