Time for recreation and social interaction

Having time for family and community

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Metric

Average time spent on recreation and leisure, and on social and community interaction

Why this matters

Recreation and social interaction enrich people’s lives. Activities including sport, music, socialising and leisure contribute to social cohesion.

Progress

In 2020-21, of people aged 15 years and over:

  • most (93%) participated in recreation and leisure activities
  • 3 out of 5 (56%) participated in social and community interaction. 

Of those who participated, the average time spent on these activities was:

  • 4 hours and 23 minutes on recreation and leisure
  • 2 hours and 2 minutes on social and community interaction.

Differences across groups

In 2020-21, the average time spent on: 

  • social and community interaction was similar for males (2 hours and 4 minutes) and females (2 hours)
  • recreation and leisure was higher for males (4 hours 45 minutes) than females (4 hours 2 minutes).

The gap between males and females is largest for people aged 15 to 24 years, with females spending 1 hour and 17 minutes less time on recreation, leisure, social and community interaction than males.

People aged 65 years and older had the highest average time spent on recreation and leisure activities (5 hours and 58 minutes).

  1. Average time spent in the activity is provided for the primary activity only to permit consistency across data series.
Data Source
ABS Time Use Survey - Table 1.1

Disaggregation

Further information on how different groups spend time on recreation and social interaction is available via the links below.

Average time spent on recreation and leisure, social and community interaction: ABS Time Use Survey

  • Age group
  • Remoteness
  • Income
  • Cultural and Linguistic Diversity
  • Educational attainment
  • Socioeconomic status.