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Executive summary

In an earlier report, entitled Arts, Culture and Recreation Participation in the Growing Up in New Zealand Cohort at 12-Years, Evans, Redman and colleagues found that 97% of 12-year-olds in New Zealand regularly participate in various free-time and extracurricular activities. In a second report, Arts, Culture and Recreation Participation and Wellbeing Amongst 12-Year-Olds, Tait and colleagues found that frequent engagement in these activities was beneficial to many aspects of a young person’s wellbeing.

This report again uses data from the Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) study – New Zealand’s largest contemporary longitudinal birth cohort study with a diverse cohort of over 6,500 children – and explores how participation changes across their early lifespan, taking a snapshot of their involvement in extracurricular activities (community-based activities, sports and creative arts) and home-based or free-time activities (physical activities and creative arts-based activities) at 4.5 years, 8 years and 12 years of age.

Key findings

Participation in extracurricular activities (Ages 8 and 12):

  • Regular participation increased from Age 8 to Age 12 across the activities studied. Most notable were the participation increases in Community-based activities (from 52.8% to 60.8%) and Creative Arts (50.4% to 79.9%).
  • Regular participation in Sporting extracurricular activities was overall very high at both time points, increasing from 79.6% to 87.8%. However, 5.3% of participants did not engage at either time point.
  • Approximately 1 in 5 participants did not engage in Community-based extracurricular activities at Age 8 or 12. Approximately 1 in 8 participants did not engage in Creative Arts extracurricular activities at either  time point.

Participation in free-time activities (Ages 4.5, 8 and 12):

  • Overall, regular participation in free-time activities decreased from Age 4.5 to Age 8 but rose again at Age 12.
  • The majority of participants (>96%) consistently engaged in Creative Arts free-time activities at all three time points.
  • Regular participation in Physical free-time activities again was very high across time points, but decreased slightly from 4.5 years (99.9%) to Age 8 years (92.2%). Overall participation remained consistently high from Age 8 to at Age 12 (92.2%).

Further research is needed to understand reasons for low participation in some areas and decreasing participation across time points, to support and enable all young people to participate in a variety of both free-time and extracurricular activities.

The full report is available to download as a PDF file above. Please contact us at [email protected] if you need assistance accessing this document.