The gender gap in sport is narrowing: 6.7 points
The latest Spanish Sports Habits Survey says the gap between men and women who do sport has fallen from 11.3 to 6.7 points in three years. Good news, with caveats, and a few ideas if you are one of the women who want to start.
Some news makes little noise but says a great deal. The latest Sports Habits Survey in Spain brings one of those: the gap between men and women who do sport has shrunk by around 40% in just three years. It is not the end of the story, but it is a good chapter.
The numbers
The survey is produced by Spain's Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sport and the National Sports Council (CSD), and covers people aged 15 and over. The 2024/25 edition, with fieldwork between October 2024 and October 2025, estimates that 62.7% of the population did some sport in the last year, compared with 57.3% in 2022.
By sex, 66.2% of men and 59.5% of women did sport. That 6.7-point difference is the news: in 2022 it was 11.3. To put it in perspective, it is not that men have stopped moving, but that women have picked up the pace more.
What the survey does not say
Time to be honest: a survey describes, it does not explain. It tells us how many people do sport, but not why so many women have joined in over these years. You could venture reasons, such as more visibility for women's sport or more groups and timetables designed for people arriving with a packed diary, but those would be hypotheses, not findings of the study.
And the glass is half empty too: four in ten women did no sport at all during the year. Behind that figure are impossible shifts, caring duties, tiredness and, sometimes, the feeling that sport is "not for me". None of those reasons is fixed with a slogan.
If you want to start (or come back)
First, an uncomfortable but liberating truth: knowing exercise is good for you does not make you consistent. What usually makes the difference is not willpower, but setting things up so that moving is easy and appealing. A few ideas that work well in practice:
Ideas to get off on the right foot
- Find company: a friend, a women's running group or a class at a fixed time turn the session into something you do not skip.
- Choose a sport you genuinely fancy, not the one you "should" do. Consistency is born of enjoyment.
- Start small: two days a week and 20 minutes is a perfectly respectable beginning.
- Set yourself a concrete goal of your own, with a date: it gives every outing a purpose.
- Do not compare yourself with anyone, least of all someone who has been training for ten years.
If you are looking for that first goal, Victoris's Adrenaline Race is 10 kilometres you complete at your own pace and from wherever you live. An achievable target to prove to yourself that you are part of that 59.5% too.
A gap of six-and-a-bit points is still six-and-a-bit points. But the trend is heading the right way, and every woman who laces up her trainers for the first time nudges it a little further.
You already have your challenge.
All that's left is to start it.
Join this challenge and every workout gets you closer to your medal.
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