Child Sport Participation Declining in Canada (1992 - 2005)

The chart below is taken from an article by Warren Clark, Kids' Sports (Canadian SocialTrends, 2008). The study looked at data from the General Social Surveys and found that:

• boys' participation has declined in all age groups
  


• girls' participation held at 1992 rates for 5-10 year olds, but declined from age 11-14 (albeit slower than the decline for boys of the same age)
  


• boys are not only less likely to regularly participate in sports, but those who do compete are involved in fewer sports
  


• girls' who participate have the same average number of sports in 2005 as in 1992.
  

The study also found that:

• sports participation is most prevalent amoung families with higher incomes


• children are more likely to participate if their parents are involved in sports (as participants, volunteers, spectators of their children's games)
  


• highest sport participation rates occur when both birth parents are still at home
  


• among two parent families, children's sports participation is highest where the mother works part-time and the father works full-time (66%); slightly lower when both parents work full-time (58%); and lowest when the mother is not working (38%)
  


• children of recent immigrants are less likely to participate
  


• sports participation was highest in Atlantic Canada and lowest in BC and Quebec
  


• sports participation was highest in smaller towns or cities with a population between 10,000 and 50,000 (58%) and lower in Canada's three largest cities - Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver (47%
  


• rural Canada had lower levels of child sport participation (49%), similar to that of mid-sized metropolitan census areas (51%).
  
  

Source: www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2008001/article/10573-eng.htm