The Active People Survey results show that women are less likely to take part in sport than men.
Sport England is working hard to persuade more women to adopt lifelong sporting habits for three reasons.
Not only does regular activity improve women's own physical and mental health, but women have a strong influencing role within their own families. Girls in particular can be more influenced by sporty mums than sporting heroes or big sporting events.
How are we tackling the issue?
We are working to get more women playing more sport in a number of ways:
- Women’s sport is a big priority across the board in the 46 sports in which we are investing around half a billion pounds over the next four years
- We’re investing £2.3m into I Will If You Will, a year-long pioneering behavioural change pilot in Bury to understand how to get more women playing sport.
- We’re investing £1.7 million into Women in Sport to help sports’ bodies attract more women and teenage girls to do sport regularly
- We have invested £10 million into 20 Active Women projects to encourage women in disadvantaged communities and women with young children to be more physically active and tackle the gender gap in sport. These include:
- Breeze: the biggest programme ever to get more women into riding bikes for fun.
- Back to Netball: a programme that helps women throughout the country try out netball or re-engage with the sport
- US Girls: a programme which has worked in nearly 50 disadvantaged areas across England to get girls into sport.
You can find out more about women and sport, including the barriers, potential and numbers currently taking part, by downloading our women and sport factsheet