After 40, women's share drops precipitously while men's declines more gently. At ages 55 to 64, men's representation matches that of the Census, while women's falls far below and disappears soon thereafter. Before they reach midlife and older age, women's roles are primarily romantic. Female characters under 18 engage in verbal or physical sexual interaction in 25.6 percent of their appearances versus 16.9 percent for males of the same age. Female characters from 18 to 39 years old have sexual interaction in 39.1 percent of their appearances.
Daytime drama is more white and more female than prime time.
Compared to prime time, female characters have a one third increase to 48 percent of all characters, but minority groups suffer a decrease by a third, to 13.5 percent. As shown in Table 4, every group but women and African Americans are represented at less than half their current population, and there were only increases in half of the demographic groups listed below. Figure 5 presents the proportional representation of diversity in a graphic format and highlights the disparity in proportional representation of minority characters on daytime television. 1995 - 1997 Fed. The age curve for daytime serials is presented for a comparison with prime time in Figure 6.