The relationship between physical activity and socioeconomic status (SES) is evident in the adult population, but is much discussed with regard to adolescents. The main objective of this review was, therefore, to clarify whether there is a relationship between physical activity and SES in adolescents. Computerized searches were conducted in the databases PubMed, ISI Web of knowledge and SPORT-Discus to identify all relevant articles up to July 2009. Other review articles, descriptive or theoretical articles and articles where the adolescents in the samples were outside the age group of 13-18 years were excluded. Sixty-two articles were included in the end. The main results support the hypothesis that there is an association between SES and physical activity among adolescents, and that adolescents with higher SES are more physically active than those with lower SES. The findings are, however, far from uniform. Forty-two percent of the included studies report no or an opposite relation. There is also an inconsistent use of measures for both variables that complicates explanations and interpretations of the findings. This fortifies the claim that there is no single explanation for a possible difference in physical activity between different socioeconomic groups.

Despite being challenged in recent years, the hypothesis that individuals of higher socioeconomic status (SES) are more physically active than their lower SES counterparts is generally considered a fact. Recent reviews, however, have suggested that differences across groups might be related to which physical activity (PA) domains have been investigated. In the present review, searches for relevant studies were performed in the MEDLINE, ISI Web of Knowledge and SPORTDiscus databases. Search terms included “socioeconomic”, “socio-economic”, “socio economic” and “social class” to meet all variations of the variable “socioeconomic status” in combination with the term “physical activity”. Studies were included when applying the dimensions of intensity, frequency, type/mode, and duration in measuring PA. Fifty-six studies were included and were subsequently split into four PA domains: transport PA (TPA), occupational PA (OPA), housing PA (HPA) and leisure time PA (LTPA). It turned out that the positive relationship held only for LTPA, whereas the relationship was non-existent or even opposite for all other domains. It is concluded that the assumed positive relationship between SES and PA is mainly a relationship between LTPA and SES. It is further suggested that the PA domain should always be considered when studying said relationships.

These promising results warrant further development of the test battery, including standardization and normalization based on a large, representative sample.

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