Physical activity levels and determinants of change in young adults: a longitudinal panel study

Table 3 Prevalence of physical inactivity, sport club membership and education by gender and age categories

	Males					Females
Age	14-16	17-19	20-22	23-26	all ages¹	14-16	17-19	20-22²	23-26	all ages¹
N of observations	1322	1257	1026	909	4514	1332	1250	986	957	4525
Physical inactivity
% inactive²	19.0	22.9	31.7	26.7	24.8	24.6	29.2	34.5	36.3	30.6
% "no sport"²	13.6	22.0	28.1	28.1	22.6	23.0	30.1	37.6	37.1	31.2
% completely inactive²	8.3	13.8	21.6	20.0	15.6	14.4	20.9	26.7	29.2	22.1
Sport club membership
% members²	63.2	56.2	49.3	47.1	54.3	49.6	41.0	30.2	32.1	39.2
Education
compulsory school	67.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	17.3	65.9	0.0	0.0	0.0	18.7
high school	12.6	20.8	2.7	0.4	9.6	15.9	29.5	5.2	0.3	13.9
apprenticeship, vocational low	20.4	74.0	60.1	47.5	50.7	18.2	63.8	56.3	51.1	46.5
vocational high	0.0	1.1	11.1	19.4	7.4	0.0	1.1	7.0	12.0	4.4
university	0.0	4.1	26.2	32.7	15.0	0.0	5.6	31.6	36.6	16.5

Pooled data over all eight waves (1999-2006)
¹ all p-values from Wald test (GEE) comparing age categories were significant in males and in females (p < 0.0001)
² all p-values from Wald test (GEE) comparing men and women within age categories were significant for no sport (p < 0.005), for completely inactive (p < 0.04), and for membership in a sport club (p < 0.0001). For inactive, p-values were significant (p < 0.005) except in the age group 20-22 years (p = 0.3).

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