Sport Australia has released its latest AusPlay survey results, for the year July 2020 to June 2021.
Bushwalking ranking – Nationally, bushwalking (/hiking) has remained in the top six of the 133 activities with regard to participation and is also now in the top six in WA, only one place behind cycling.
Participation – 9.8% (2.08 million) of Australia’s adult population participated in bushwalking compared to 15% in cycling and 2.2% in mountain biking. In WA, bushwalking participation was a little lower, at 7.8% (~168,000) of adults, but a significant net 12% increase on the previous survey only six months earlier .
Long-term increase in participation –The longer term national data shows an overall increase of 4.9% for adult participation in bushwalking over the past 20 years compared to a 7.1% increase in cycling. However over the past 6 years, participation in bushwalking has more than doubled from 4% to ~10%, with the greatest rate of increase being over the past 2 years, most likely reflecting the relative ease of access to bushwalking opportunities midst COVID restrictions.
Gender participation – In WA, the strong trend of increasing female participation continues (now 59%) compared to males (41%). That contrasts with the steady national ratio of female 55% : male 45%, and with a seemingly strongly male-centric activity such as mountain biking where the ratio is stable at 18% female : 82% male.
Non-sports versus Sports activities – Nationally, 26.2% of adults participated in non-sports related physical activities compared to 15.4% in sport-related activities. Non-sport activities have increased significantly (by 28 percentage points from 2001 to 2020, while participation in sport-0related activities hasn’t increased.
See the AusPlay National and State results released 29 October 2021.
(Posted 29 October 2021.)
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