This study examines changes in sport participation among females over a six year period (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016) within five popular sports by age and region. It also identifies future challenges community sports face in increasing female sport participation. Deidentified participant registration data for the five sports were obtained and analysed according to age, gender and region (metropolitan v non-metropolitan) within the state of Victoria, Australia. Data for all sports were aggregated and analysed collectively to produce a broad participation profile. Interviews were held with community sport stakeholders (n=17) across low socioeconomic metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions to understand challenges associated with increasing female sport participation.Our results showed that female sport participation levels increased over the six year period, with greater proportional increases among the youngest age group (4-9yrs), which is the common entry age into organised sport through modified sports programs.Retention of females in sport throughout adolescence and adulthood remains a challenge. Community-level sports face challenges to accommodate growth in female sport participation in terms of availability and quality of sport infrastructure and volunteer capacity -both human resources to deliver sport and organisational capacity to devise and implement strategies to recruit and retain females. Sport policies that encourage female sport participation need to also consider the supply of sport in terms of 1. maximising infrastructure usage and where required planning infrastructure development 2. developing volunteer capacity. Infrastructure planning must account for changing demographic characteristics of communities and the changing nature of sport participation over the lifespan for both males and females.
Background Throughout the ecosystem of sport, women have been and continue to be underrepresented at all levels compared to men. The capacity of community-level sport is heavily reliant on the many non-player roles including governance, as well as administration, coaching and officiating. Recently there has been increased attention to improving the gender balance in sport. The aim of this study is to investigate the proportions of women engaged in non-playing roles in sport (2016–2018). Methods This study involved secondary analysis of the AusPlay survey, a national population survey, funded by Sport Australia. This study utilised data from people aged 15-years or older about their involvement in non-playing roles in sport, and their demographic data. Survey respondents were asked “During the last 12 months, have you been involved with any sports in a nonplaying role, such as official, coach, referee, administrator, etc?” Analysis of non-player role responses focussed specifically on the top four non-player role categories; coach, official, administrator and manager. Frequency analysis concentrated on the distribution of men and women involvement in a non-player capacity for the three years, with detailed analysis of the most recent year (2018). Results In this study of 61,578 Australians there was a higher proportion of men in non-player roles in sport compared to women, across each of the three years (2018: men 55 %, women 46 %). Involvement of women in coaching increased significantly from 38 % to 2016 to 44 % in 2018 (p < 0.001). The proportion of women involved in administration roles significantly decreased from a peak of 51 % in 2017 to 46 % in 2018 (p < 0.001). Conclusions Aligned with strategic policy and investment strategies, there are gradual increased representation of women in non-playing sport, coaching roles. Women are still underrepresented in terms of coaches, officials and administrators, but are more likely to be managers. It is recommended that there is continued mentoring, identification and emphasising of female role models, and further strategies to increase female presence in non-playing roles. We recommend that future research, in line with appropriate gender and cultural-change theories, investigates and discusses the progress of gender equality throughout playing and non-playing role in sport.
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