The bar chart compares the proportion of males and females in England who engaged in different free-time activities in 2006.
Overall, men outnumberedwomen in most categories, except spending time with family and shopping where the opposite was true. Notably, shopping and using the Internet showed the most pronounced gender gap.
In 2006, nearly 80% of men and women in England watched TV in their free-time, making it the most popular free-time activity in the study, with men slightly in the lead. Spending time with family was almost as popular, though the percentage of women in this category was a little higher. When it comes to physical activities and reading, the figures were very similar: approximately70% of men vs 65% of women.
The remaining pastimes, meanwhile, exhibited more dramatic gender differences. Shopping was primarily a female hobby, with close to 75% of women engaging in it compared to about a third of men. By contrast, using the Internet and playing computer games were male-dominated activities, where women were outnumbered 2 to 1, with the latter being the least popular pastime overall.