The bar chart illustrates the percentage of Australian children who participated in four different sports – swimming, football, netball, and basketball- as well as those who did not engage in any sport after school hour in 2010. Overall, girls generally accounted for the largest share of participants in three of the sports, while boys dominated football participation. Notably, boys showed much lower participation rates in the remaining sports categories.
Both genders showed significant participation in swimming, with girls slightly outnumbering boys at 16% compared to 14 %. However, boys demonstrated a clear preference for football, emerging as the dominant group among all sport categories, with 20 % participating in this activity. In contract, netball was largely preferred by girls, with 18 % involved, while only 2 % boys took part, highlighting a stark gender difference in this sport.
The participation rate for basketball was relatively low compared to other sports. Boys generally participated slightly less, at 6%, while 7% of girls were involved in the activity. Despite the overall interest in sports, a noticeable percentage of children did not engage in any after-school activities. The proportion of girls did not participate in sports stood at 4 %, whereas the rate for boys was 2%.