Sport Study Switzerland 2020

How sporty are we?

Enthusiasm for exercise, sport and fitness has been on the increase in Switzerland for years. According to the most recent Sport Study by the Bundesamt für Sport (BASPO), Switzerland is one of the sportiest countries in Europe. What does that mean, specifically?

The most important facts on Switzerland as a sporting nation from the 2020 Sport Study are:

General, on developing sporting activity

• Switzerland is the third most sporting country in Europe. Only Finland and Sweden have smaller numbers of people not active in sports than Switzerland.
• 75 percent of people living in Switzerland do sport at least once per week. And this puts Switzerland into the top spot in Europe for the first time, followed by Finland (69%) and Sweden (68%).
• The number of people not involved in sports has shrunk markedly since 2014, from 26 to 16 percent. In French-speaking and Italian-speaking Switzerland, 21 percent never do any sport, while only 14 percent of people describe themselves as not engaging in sports in German-speaking Switzerland.
• The Swiss population has become visibly more physically active since 2014, and this is evident not just in sporting activities, but also in exercise behaviour. Around 80 percent of people living in Switzerland and over the age of 15 meet the current exercise recommendations. There is thus a clear relationship between sports and physical activities. People who do lots of sport are more likely to meet the general exercise recommendations. However, we should also say: you can meet the exercise recommendations without doing any sport. Sports alone do not guarantee a life full of movement.

“The more physical activity and movement disappears from everyday life, the more important it becomes to do sports regularly.”
(Sportstudie Schweiz 2020)

Women have caught up with men

• Today, men and women do practically the same amount of sport.
• Women are doing noticeably more sport, and doing it more often, than they were 20 years ago. In the year 2000, a comparable number of women made do with 1-2 hours of sport per week. Today, 20 years later, it is also common for women to put on their sports shoes and take physical exercise for three or more hours per week.
• Women over the age of 45 have become particularly enthusiastic about sport.

Sport for senior citizens is booming

• There is a sharp increase in sporting activity among people in the second half of life.

Doing sport for your health

• 68 percent of people do sport because it is healthy. Other motives for doing sport are: fitness (60%), joy of movement (50%) and being out in the open air (55%).
• Relaxation (38%) and de-stressing (29%) are also important inducements for doing sport.
• 91 percent of the over-64s admitted that sport helped them to remain mobile in their daily lives. Preserving mental abilities with sport is the aim of 57 percent of this age group.
• Health/fitness and joy of movement are, independently of age and sex, the most common motives for doing sports.

Multi-sports activities in the Swiss population

• On average, people practise 4.5 different types of sport. Approximately 63 percent of those doing sport specify 2 to 5 types of sport, and for 2 percent, it is more than 10 types.
• Hiking (56.9%), cycling (42%), swimming (38.6%), skiing (34.9%) and running/jogging (27%) are particularly popular. For 20 years, these sports – known as the “Swiss pentathlon” – have topped the list of the most popular sporting activities.
• Hiking, yoga and strength training are booming.
• What is striking is that the majority of sports now have more people doing them than in 2014, but the frequency with which they do them has gone down. A possible explanation for this is that people are doing several different sports in parallel and thus have less time for each individual sport.
• Both young and older people are keen on hiking, which is one of the most popular sports for both sexes.

Reasons for not doing sport

• The most common reason for sporting inactivity is a lack of time.
• Lack of interest in and lack of desire to do sports, together with a high workload and health reasons, are more commonly cited than they were six years ago.
• 70 percent of non-athletes used to do sport and a third would like to take up sports again.

Sport outdoors is most popular

• People are most likely to take advantage of opportunities to do sport in the open air. To do so, they need a sports infrastructure such as hiking routes, signposted cycle routes, fitness trails, mountain railways/ski-lifts, etc., which are used frequently.
• 29 percent of the Swiss population do sport at least once per week at home.

Doing sport flexibly

• In Switzerland, there is a great need among many people active in sports in Switzerland to be able to choose their sports time flexibly.
• 46 percent of the Swiss population preferred doing sports in the evening, followed by the morning (26%) and the afternoon (26%).
• Almost half of the Swiss population do sport without being a member of a club or gym. Approximately 22 percent are active members of a sports club.
• Approximately 22 percent are active members of a sports club.
• 14 percent are members of a gym and 5 percent of the population are active in both a sports club and a gym.
• Since 2014, the number of people in Switzerland doing free sports not organised by a gym or club has noticeably increased.

“The overwhelming majority of the Swiss population thinks that sport is healthy, sport is a meaningful leisure activity, and that sport plays an important part in educating and socialising children and young people.”
(Sportstudie Schweiz 2020)

For the first time, the study “Sport Switzerland 2020” was conducted using mixed-mode surveys in the adult target group. Study participants were free to choose whether they took part via a computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI), as in previous years, or an online self-completed interview (computer-assisted web interview, CAWI). In the period between March and August 2019, a total of 12,120 people living in Switzerland (51% women) aged from 15 to 75+ were surveyed. Of these participants, 17 percent were foreign nationals and another 14 percent had dual citizenship, Swiss and something else. A total of 777 people in Zug Canton took part in the study. You can find out more information on the survey methodology in the last chapter of the BASPO publication.