26/03/2009 Note: The Volunteers in Sport report (pdf) provides additional analysis to the Data Cubes previously released in the publication Volunteers in Sport, Australia, 2006 on 30 October 2008. The Data Cubes have been re-released with added clarification of terms, so they are consistent with the Volunteers in Sport report (pdf).
MAIN FEATURES
This publication presents summary data on sports volunteers from the 2006 General Social Survey. Data on all volunteers from the 2006 General Social Survey (GSS) was published in Voluntary Work, Australia, 2006 (cat. no. 4441.0). The publication consists of two data cubes - the first one presents data for Australia, and the second presents data for each of the states and territories.
The datacubes show the characteristics of people volunteering for sports and physical recreation organisations and other organisations; and non-volunteers. People volunteering for sports and physical recreation organisations have been spilt into the categories of volunteering for sports and physical recreation organisations only; and sports and physical recreation together with other organisations.
Some key findings include:
1 About one-third of the Australian population aged 18 years and over participated in voluntary work (5.2 million or 34.1%). A third of these, or just over 1.7 million people (11.2%) volunteered for sports and physical recreation organisations. Of these 968,000 people (6.3%) volunteered for sports and physical recreation organisations only, while 745,000 people (or 4.9%) volunteered for both sports and physical recreation organisations and other organisations.
2 Male volunteers were more likely to be involved in sports and physical recreation organisations than females (60.7% and 39.3% respectively).
3 A greater proportion of people who volunteered for sports and physical recreation organisations were aged 35–44 and 45–54 years (29.8% and 24.8% respectively). The greatest proportion of male volunteers in sports and physical recreation organisations were in the age groups 35-44 years and 45-54 years (15.6% each). The highest proportion of female volunteers in sports and physical recreation organisations were in the age group 35-44 years (14.2%).
4 Over half (57.7% or 989,000) of sports and recreation volunteers participated in voluntary work at least once a week, compared with 44.4% of non-sports volunteers.
5 Seventy per cent (522,000) of persons who volunteered for both sports and physical recreation organisations and other organisations had done so for more than ten years. This compares with 50.6% (489,000) of persons who volunteered for only sports and physical recreation organisations.
6 A third (566,200 persons or 33.1%) of the 1.7 million sports volunteers spent most of the volunteering time involved in coaching, refereeing and judging. Other voluntary activities that sports volunteers spent time on included administration, clerical, recruitment and information management tasks (269,000 or 15.7%), and fundraising and sales (249,000 or 14.5%).
7 For sports and physical recreation volunteers, the most common reasons for being involved were wanting to help others in the community (53.1%), followed by personal satisfaction (46.4%) and personal or family involvement (45.5%) (interview participants were able to cite more than one reason for being a volunteer).
8 Of the 1.7 million sports and recreation volunteers, 88.3% (or 1.5 million sports volunteers) also participated in sports or physical recreation activity in the last 12 months.
9 The majority of sports and physical recreation volunteers had all or most of their friends of the same ethnic background (77.5%). A similar percentage of sports volunteers had all or most of their friends of a similar age (69.3%) and all or most of their friends had a similar education (59.8%).
10 The Northern Territory had the highest sport volunteer rate, at 14.8%, followed closely by Western Australia with 13.9% and Queensland with 12.2%. New South Wales had the lowest sport volunteer rate, with only 9.5% of their population aged 18 and over volunteering for a sporting organisation.
Information on terms used in this publication can be found in the Explanatory Notes.
INQUIRIES
For further information about these and related statistics contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070. |
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