Prague library data reveals a widening gender gap in borrowing books

An analysis of 17 million loans recorded by the Municipal Library of Prague between 2023 and 2025 revealed substantial differences in library use and borrowing preferences by age and gender. The gap widened particularly after age 30: among 35-year-old users, the library recorded 3.5 active women for every active man.

Czech Radio’s data journalism team conducted the analysis using borrowing and return records provided by the library. The findings apply specifically to users of the Municipal Library of Prague and cannot be generalised to all readers in Czechia. One-fifth of the library’s cardholders lived outside Prague, most commonly in the Central Bohemian Region.

Children aged 6–14 were the library’s most active age group relative to the overall population. The first years of primary school were also the only period in which girls and boys borrowed library materials at approximately the same rate.

Municipal Library of Prague spokesperson Lenka Hanzlíková said the institution invited groups from kindergartens, schools, and universities to attend its programmes. Children younger than 15 were also eligible for free library cards — a practice she said had proved effective across Czechia.

The gender gap began to emerge at around age 10 and widened again after age 30. At age 35, women borrowed children’s and young adult books approximately seven times as frequently as men of the same age. Men’s and women’s borrowing preferences were most similar at around age 18. At that age, the two groups shared almost 80 of the 100 most frequently borrowed books, largely because of compulsory school reading and exercise books. Their choices became more distinct between ages 20 and 35 before becoming more similar again later in life.

Both groups showed a moderate preference for authors of their own gender. Women chose works by women and men at a ratio of 58:42, while men selected works by men and women at a ratio of 61:39. When the analysis was limited to Czech fiction, the respective ratios were 59:41 among women and 55:45 among men.

The researchers cautioned that a single library card could be shared by an entire family. Hanzlíková said that in some households, a woman managed the family card and used it to borrow materials for her partner and children. The records therefore show which card was used but do not necessarily identify the person who read each book.

Possible evidence of shared cards included more than 100 children younger than 10 recorded as borrowing erotic novels during the three-year period and around 2,000 retirement-age users borrowing board books. However, each group represented less than 1% of total borrowing in the respective category.

Borrowing rises before summer and after New Year

Loans increased throughout all four weeks of June as readers prepared for the summer holidays. Children’s and young adult fiction, detective and humorous novels, and travel guides reached their highest annual shares near the end of the school year.

The busiest individual days were the first opening days in January. Books about healthy living, diet food, and positive thinking reached their annual peaks after New Year, although their relative popularity declined with each subsequent week of January.

Most borrowing transactions involved no more than two books or magazines. Users took more than 10 items in only 2% of cases. Among people who borrowed at least one item, nine loans per year separated the less active half of users from the more active half.

Returns increased shortly before the end of loan periods — first before the 30th day and again before the 60th day, the maximum extension available when another reader had not reserved the item.

The library’s most active borrower in 2025 was a man in his 50s who borrowed materials on 232 of the 281 days when branches were open. He used eight branches during the year.

The Municipal Library of Prague operated close to 50 branches. Thirteen people borrowed materials from at least 25 branches in 2025; only three were of working age, while most were school-age users or older adults.

The data also indicated that people frequently borrowed books about the Prague districts where they lived, particularly in older neighbourhoods. The analysis noted that this pattern could partly reflect the larger number of books published about older districts compared with newer housing developments.

The researchers did not identify strong local preferences for particular writers. Well-known authors associated with specific districts, such as Bohumil Hrabal with Libeň, were also widely read elsewhere, while borrowing figures for less prominent local writers were too small to distinguish from statistical noise.

As reported earlier, the National Library of Poland’s 2025 reading survey also recorded a gender gap. Forty-seven percent of women said they had read at least one book during the year, compared with 34% of men. The nationally representative survey included 2,005 Polish residents aged 15 and older.

RELATED: Czech Republic named Guest of Honour for Frankfurt Book Fair 2026

Main image: pexels