Editing Encyclopedia:Wikipedians (section)

==Demographics==
{{Update-section}}
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Demographics}}

[[United Nations University|UNU-Merit]] (United Nations University-Merit) completed the 2010 [[:meta:Research:UNU-MERIT Wikipedia survey]] of Wikipedia users, including both contributors (registered and unregistered) and readers.<ref name="UNU-M">{{cite web |last1=Glott |first1=Ruediger |last2=Schmidt |first2=Phillipp |last3= Ghosh |first3=Rishab |date=March 2010 |title=Wikipedia Survey—Overview of Results |url=http://www.wikipediastudy.org/docs/Wikipedia_Overview_15March2010-FINAL.pdf |url-status=usurped |work=Wikipedia Study |publisher=UNU-MERIT |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728182835/http://www.wikipediastudy.org/docs/Wikipedia_Overview_15March2010-FINAL.pdf |archive-date=28 July 2011}}</ref> 176,192 people chose to participate, approximately 58,000 of whom were contributors to Wikipedia. Many of the findings were reported as an aggregate and were not separated by user type. Only the statistics relevant to Wikipedians are presented. In 2011, the WMF (Wikimedia Foundation) presented a questionnaire to logged-in Wikipedia editors (does not include unregistered Wikipedians) to gain a better understanding of the demographics, perceptions and motivations of Wikipedians.<ref name="2011 WMF Survey">{{cite web|title=Wikipedia Editor Study: Results From the Editor Survey, April 2011|url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Editor_Survey_Report_-_April_2011.pdf|website=Wikimedia|publisher=Wikimedia Foundation|access-date=9 January 2021}}</ref> Over 5,000 people responded to the survey. Here are the results of both surveys:

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Editors by age<ref name="2011 WMF Survey"/>
! scope="col" | Age group
! scope="col" | WMF (%)
|-
|12–17||13 percent
|-
|18–21||14 percent
|-
|22–29||26 percent
|-
|30–39||19 percent
|-
|40+||28 percent
|}

UNU-Merit reported the average age of contributors at 26.14 years, but did not provide a greater breakdown of age by user type.<ref name=UNU-M/>

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Editors by education completed
! scope="col" | Education level completed
! scope="col" | WMF (%)
! scope="col" | UNU-Merit (%)
|-
|Primary||9||11
|-
|Secondary||30||34
|-
|Undergraduate||35||26
|-
|Masters||18||18
|-
|PhD||8||4
|-
|Other||NR||6
|}

WMF reported 43% of respondents are currently enrolled in school or post-secondary education.<ref name="2011 WMF Survey"/>

According to the WMF findings, the top three countries where Wikipedia contributors reside are the United States (20%), Germany (12%), and Russia (7%). The primary language of Wikipedia contributors is English (52%) followed by German (18%) with Russian and Spanish coming in third at 10% each. The UNU-Merit study did not breakdown language and country of residence in terms of type of participation with Wikipedia.

According to UNU-Merit, 87 percent of Wikipedians are men and 13 percent are women.<ref name=UNU-M/>

According to the 2011 WMF survey, although the percentage of female editors continues to increase, ninety percent of Wikipedians are male, nine percent female, and one percent transgender/transsexual.<ref name="2011 WMF Survey"/>

Experienced female editors can be very successful—they are more likely to become administrators than men—but as new editors, their good-faith contributions are more likely to be reverted than good-faith contributions by a man.<ref>{{cite conference |last1=Lam |first1=S. K. |last2=Uduwage |first2=A. |last3=Dong |first3=Z. |last4=Sen |first4=S. |last5=Musicant |first5=D. R. |last6=Terveen |first6=L. |last7=Riedl |first7=J. |date=October 2011 |url=http://www.grouplens.org/node/466 |title=WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia's Gender Imbalance |book-title=WikiSym |publisher=ACM |doi=10.1145/2038558.2038560 |pages=1–10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726121710/http://www.grouplens.org/node/466 |archive-date=26 July 2011}}</ref>

More information regarding the gender gap can be found at [[meta:Gender gap|Gender gap]].

In an October 2023 representative survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, [[YouGov]] found that 7% had ever edited Wikipedia, that 20% had ever considered doing so who had not, that 55% had never done so and had never considered doing so, and that 17% had never used Wikipedia.<ref>{{cite web|title=YouGov Survey: Wikipedia|publisher=YouGov|url=https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Wikipedia_poll_results.pdf|access-date=January 26, 2024}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|+ 
|-
! colspan="3" | October 2023 YouGov survey on U.S. editors
|-
! Demographic !! % of demographic<br>respondents !! Demographic<br>sample size
|-
! colspan="3" | Gender
|-
| Male || 9% || 416
|-
| Female || 5% || 582
|-
! colspan="3" | Age
|-
| 18–29 years || 14% || 122
|-
| 30–44 years || 12% || 206
|-
| 45–64 years || 3% || 394
|-
| 65 years or older || 1% || 276
|-
! colspan="3" | [[Race and ethnicity in the United States|Race]]
|-
| [[White Americans|White]] || 6% || 611
|-
| [[African Americans|Black]] || 5% || 119
|-
| [[Hispanic and Latino Americans|Hispanic]] || 13% || 155
|-
| Other || 10% || 113
|-
! colspan="3" | [[Political parties in the United States|Party ID]]
|-
| [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] || 12% || 362
|-
| [[Independent voter|Independent]] || 5% || 371
|-
| [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] || 4% || 265
|-
! colspan="3" | [[2020 United States presidential election|2020 vote]]
|-
| [[Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign|Biden]] || 11% || 367
|-
| [[Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign|Trump]] || 4% || 338
|-
! colspan="3" | [[Household income in the United States|Family income]]
|-
| Less than $50,000 || 6% || 423
|-
| $50,000 to $100,000 || 8% || 277
|-
| $100,000 or more || 11% || 209
|-
! colspan="3" | [[List of regions of the United States|Region]]
|-
| [[Northeastern United States|Northeast]] || 6% || 164
|-
| [[Midwestern United States|Midwestern]] || 6% || 217
|-
| [[Southern United States|Southern]] || 5% || 393
|-
| [[Western United States|Western]] || 13% || 224
|-
|}