Young girls play a game of soccer. The study shows 41 percent of young girls in Canada do not participate in sport, and that more than doubles in adult women to 84% who do not practice sport.

Young girls play a game of soccer. The study shows 41 percent of young girls in Canada do not participate in sport, and that more than doubles in adult women to 84% who do not practice sport.
Photo Credit: Fred Chartrand/The Canadian Press

Why not more women in sports?

On this International Women’s Day, a new study released today shows a marked gender inequality in Canadian sports.

The study, “Women in Sport—Fuelling a Lifetime of Participation” was released by the  Canadian Association for Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity (CAAWS) and funded by was funded by Canada’s dairy farmers as part of their “Fuelling Women Champions” movement.

Cover image of the report released today on International womens day.
Cover image of the report released today on International womens day. (for the pdf report click on Feuling Women Champions link, and scroll down to bottom of page © CAAWS

The study involving an examination of research from academic journals, primary research from national surveys, and analysis of four years of coverage in the media of female sports.

It shows that  41 per cent of girls between the ages of 3-17 years do not participate in sport—and this jumps to 84 per cent in adult women.

In Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), the national governing body for university sport, 24 per cent of all Athletic Director positions and 17 per cent of all head coaching spots in the CIS are female.

As for sports networks, in 35,000 hours of programming only 4 percent was for coverage of female sports, and most of that was for female tennis and women at the Sochi Olympics.

Laurence Vincent-Lapointe, winner of ten world championships.
Laurence Vincent-Lapointe, winner of ten world championships and a fervent activist to get more exposure and recognition for women’s canoeing. © via CBC

Quoted in a press release, Caroline Emond, executive director, Dairy Farmers of Canada. “Launching this research publication is not only a significant stride for addressing pertinent social issues, but it is step in the right direction to propose actionable solutions and get people thinking about what they can do to change the situation.”

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