Report reveals impact of inequality on girls’ sport

Youth Sport Trust Girls Active 2025 Research find girls faced with multiple characteristics of inequality less active, less confident, less engaged in PE and physical activity.

Ahead of International Day of the Girl on 11^th October, new data from the Youth Sport Trust’s annual Girls Active Survey has found that girls with multiple characteristics of inequality are being left behind in PE and school sport. The survey reveals that girls with two or more characteristics of inequality, such as being from a low-income family, a non-majority ethnicity, or having Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), are significantly more likely to not be active every day, not feel confident doing physical activity and less likely to like PE than those without.

The Youth Sport Trust Girls Active survey, which received responses from 17,971 young people across a total of 137 schools in England this year, explores young people’s experiences, perceptions and engagement in PE and school sport. This year the report has taken a closer look at the experiences of girls with additional characteristics of inequality to see how their lived experience differs from girls without these characteristics.

Gender is already a hurdle

Gender alone is already a significant barrier to activity, with the Sport England Active Lives Children and Young People survey findings showing that only 45% of 5-18 year old girls are meeting recommended activity levels in comparison to 51% of boys. The Girls Active survey found that girls are twice as likely as boys to not like taking part in physical activity, and, even worse, girls are nearly 4 times as likely to not feel confident in and not like taking part in PE at school than boys.

The gap between girls’ and boys’ enjoyment of and participation in PE is one reason Sport England identifies gender as a ‘characteristic of inequality’ in physical activity². For girls, who already face gender as a barrier, additional inequalities could mean they are even less likely to be active, confident, or enjoy PE.

Multiple inequalities add more obstacles

The insight from the Girls Active survey shows that girls with 2 or more characteristics of inequality, such as being from a non-majority ethnicity, a low-income family and/or having SEND, compared with girls with none of these characteristics, are:

·       1.6 times more likely to not like taking part in physical activity

·       1.3 times more likely to not like taking part in PE

·       1.3 times more likely to not feel confident when doing physical activity.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, they are then half as likely to do physical activity every day than girls without additional characteristics of inequality.

Beyond PE and physical activity, this gap also shows up in girls’ overall wellbeing. They are 1.4 times more likely to not be happy, 1.5 times more likely to not feel resilient and 1.3 times more likely to feel that they don’t belong to their school.

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