Gender Differences in Self-Reported Social Participation in Adults With Autism.
Autistic women without intellectual disability join fewer of the social activities they value and feel less satisfied—screen for this gap and target it in plans.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Feng et al. (2025) asked autistic adults to fill out a survey about social participation. They wanted to know if men and women felt the same about how often and how well they joined valued community activities.
The team split the group by gender and by whether the person also had intellectual disability. Then they compared total days of participation and how satisfied each group felt.
What they found
Men and women reported the same number of days out in the community. Yet women without intellectual disability said they joined fewer of the activities that matter most to them.
These women also felt less satisfied with their social life than men or than women with intellectual disability.
How this fits with other research
Anonymous (2025) ran the same survey in French and got the same pattern. Together the two papers form a direct replication, so the gender gap is unlikely to be a fluke.
Hamama et al. (2021) showed that grocery shopping tops the list of valued activities and that autistic adults with intellectual disability already feel left out. Wei et al. now add that women without intellectual disability form another overlooked group.
Delgado-Lobete et al. (2020) found that autistic women report more camouflaging. Higher masking may explain why they end up in fewer personally meaningful activities even though their overall days out look the same.
Why it matters
If you write person-centered plans, ask autistic women without intellectual disability which specific activities they care about, not just how often they go out. Add goals that target those chosen activities and build supports that reduce the need to camouflage. A simple checklist of valued hobbies or community roles can open doors that raw attendance numbers hide.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
There is a lack of research on gender differences in adults' with autism participation in social activities (i.e., activities that provide interactions with others in the community). Using a large statewide sample (N = 775, 217 females and 558 males), we examined gender differences in the social participation of adults with autism while considering the presence of an intellectual disability (ID). No gender differences were found in total participation days. However, women with autism without ID reported participating in lower percentages of social activities that were important to them and perceiving sufficient participation in lower percentages of these important social activities than their male counterparts. They also reported lower satisfaction with participation level (i.e., perceived sufficiency in participation in important social activities) in social activities that were important to them than women with autism with ID. Implications of findings for understanding gender differences in autism across the life course are discussed.
American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2025 · doi:10.1352/1944-7558-130.2.81