The bar charts illustrate the proportion of Australian children in both genders participating in cultural and sport activities in 2003.
Overall, the rate of boys playing sports and musical instruments was higher than girls’, whereas other traditional activities recorded more female participants.
Regarding the male’s dominance, musical instruments were the only cultural activity that comprised a higher percentage of boys, at 15% compared to 10% of girls. Furthermore, a larger gap of around 15 percentage points between male and female participants under 14 years old was observed in sport, accounting for 70% of boys and approximately 55% of girls.
In terms of the remaining categories, dancing witnessed the most significant disparity between boys and girls taking part in. One quarter of female children participated in this activity, which was the most preferred activity for girls, while only around 2% of males aged 5-14 did. However, these figures for children involved in drama and singing were relatively comparable, both of which accounted for 5% of girls and 4% of boys.