INTRODUCTION
The Time Use Survey, conducted in 1992 and 1997, collected information on the daily activity patterns of Australians aged 15 years and over. This chapter examines how people spend their free time using data from the 1997 Time Use Survey. Free time is the time remaining after time devoted to essential activities (such as personal hygiene, paid work, housework etc.) has been deducted from a person's day. Free time spent on Sport and outdoor activity is compared with time spent on other activities. The Time Use Survey defined Sport and outdoor activity as including formal and informal sport, exercise, walking, fishing, hiking and holidays/travel. While most of these are sports and physical recreation activities, the inclusion of holidays and travel does not align with the definitions of sports and physical recreation from data sources presented in Chapter 3 - Participation. Although many holiday and travel activities include sports or physical recreation (particularly walking for recreation and swimming at the beach), this is not necessarily the case.
Data from the Time Use Survey has been published in How Australians Use Their Time, 1997 (cat. no. 4153.0). Further detail on time spent on culture and leisure activities was released in the brochure Time Use on Culture/Leisure Activities, 1997 (cat. no. 4173.0). Data is available for 'all persons' and 'participants'. 'All persons' refers to everyone in the Australian population aged 15 years and over, while 'participants' refers to those respondents who reported some time spent on a specific activity.
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