Study: Female streamers less likely to be paid than men

A study released by PayPal suggests female streamers, particularly American gamers, are less likely to be paid for the content they produce, in spite of the fact that viewers as a whole are spending a lot of money on livestreamers.

The details: PayPal’s survey, conducted with 25,000 participants in 25 countries, examined spending habits of gamers who’ve use PayPal’s service — and it revealed a few insights into how gamers spend their money. When it comes to livestreaming, viewers are more willing than ever to spend their money: 34 percent reported spending more than $50 on streamers in the last three months.

But that wealth is distributed unevenly. According to the data, 43 percent of female streamers report they aren’t paid for the content they create, with 38 percent of men reporting the same. For American streamers, the gap was wider, with 47 percent of female streamers in the US saying they earn nothing for their work, compared with only 24 percent of men. The gap is the same with Canadian streamers, with 61 percent of women vs 38 percent of men.

Why it matters: While those numbers sound a little grim, they don’t take into account the percentage of female streamers vs male. There are few hard numbers on exactly how many of Twitch’s 2 million streamers are female, and even fewer on those at Mixer or YouTube Gaming. But if there are fewer female streamers globally than men, it might explain why a higher proportion of them report being unpaid.

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For example, Twitch has pushed to get more of its streamers to affiliate status, meaning their viewers can contribute regularly via subscriptions. If men have even a small numbers advantage over women in the affiliate or partner categories, then naturally there will be fewer of them reporting they aren’t paid for their content.

Either way, it explains why there’s a niche for Twitch to offer grants to female streamers, such as the $2,000 BroadcastHER grant it currently offers in partnership with a nonprofit.

But wait. There’s more: Other details from the survey reveals gamers trust YouTubers more than journalists or streamers when they’re taking advice on which games to purchase. They’ve also purchased games from 44 different storefronts globally, which is a little staggering. I’m struggling to name 20.

American gamers also spend more, on average, than most other groups — and they spent about the same amount of money supporting streamers as they did on game purchases.