EVALUATION OF EXISTING EUROSTAT STATISTICS

7. Leisure and social participation

The UNCRPD addresses leisure, culture, recreation, and social participation in Article 30 on participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure, and sport. It recognises the rights of persons with disabilities to enjoy access to sporting venues, museums, theatres, and other cultural performances, as well as access to monuments and important cultural or national sites.

The indicators in this section do not meet the criteria for Nordic Statistics Database due to the limited periodicity of data collection. The indicators in this section have only one time point, namely 2022, with the next data collection scheduled for 2028. Despite their limitations, the indicators are documented in the report for future reference.

Indicator	Data source	Disability measurement	Periodicity of data collection	Population
1. Persons participating in cultural activities	EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) [ilc_scp37]	GALI	Every 6 years	16 years and older
2. Persons participating in sport activities	EU SILC [ilc_scp37]	GALI	Every 6 years	16 years and older
3. Persons getting together with family	EU SILC [ilc_scp35]	GALI	Every 6 years	16 years and older
4. Persons getting together with friends	EU SILC [ilc_scp35]	GALI	Every 6 years	16 years and older
5. Persons feeling left out from society	EU SILC [ilc_pw12]	GALI	Every 6 years	16 years and older
6. Overall perceived social support	The European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) [hlth_ehis_ss1d]	WG-SS	Irregular (three waves conducted; latest in 2019)	15 years and older
7. Persons participating in formal voluntary activities	EU SILC [ilc_scp39]	GALI	Every 6 years	16 years and older

Table 9: Indicators on leisure and social participation documented for future reference.

Indicator	Data source	Disability measurement	Periodicity of data collection	Population
1. Persons participating in cultural activities	EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) [ilc_scp37]	GALI	Every 6 years	16 years and older
2. Persons participating in sport activities	EU SILC [ilc_scp37]	GALI	Every 6 years	16 years and older
3. Persons getting together with family	EU SILC [ilc_scp35]	GALI	Every 6 years	16 years and older
4. Persons getting together with friends	EU SILC [ilc_scp35]	GALI	Every 6 years	16 years and older
5. Persons feeling left out from society	EU SILC [ilc_pw12]	GALI	Every 6 years	16 years and older
6. Overall perceived social support	The European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) [hlth_ehis_ss1d]	WG-SS	Irregular (three waves conducted; latest in 2019)	15 years and older
7. Persons participating in formal voluntary activities	EU SILC [ilc_scp39]	GALI	Every 6 years	16 years and older

Table 9: Indicators on leisure and social participation documented for future reference.

Figure 22: Share of persons participating in cultural activities at least once in the past 12 months by level of disability among persons aged 16 years and older living in private households.

Year: 2022. Data not available for Iceland and the EU27 average.

Source: Eurostat [ilc_scp37]

The first indicator in the leisure and social participation section is the share of persons who have at least once in the past 12 months (in 2022) participated in cultural activities, by level of disability, shown in Figure 22. The graph shows that in all Nordic countries, persons without disabilities are more likely to participate in cultural activities than persons with severe or some disabilities. The widest gap between persons with severe and no disabilities is observed in Finland (34 percentage points), while the narrowest gap is observed in Denmark (25 percentage points).

Figure 23: Share of persons participating in sport activities at least once in the past 12 months by level of disability among persons aged 16 years and older living in private households.

Year: 2022. Data not available for Iceland and the EU27 average.

Source: Eurostat [ilc_scp37]

The next indicator is the share of persons participating in sport activities at least once in the past 12 months by level of disability, shown in Figure 23. The graph shows that in all Nordic countries, persons without disabilities are at least twice as likely to participate in sport activities than those with some or severe disabilities. The lowest share of persons with severe disabilities who participate in sport activities is observed in Sweden (10%), which also has the widest gap in this respect between persons with severe and no disabilities (58 percentage points).

Figure 24: Share of persons getting together with family or relatives every week by level of disability among persons aged 16 years and older living in private households.

Year: 2022. Data not available for Iceland and the EU27.

Source: Eurostat [ilc_scp35]

The third indicator in this category is persons getting together with family every week by level of disability, shown in Figure 24. The graph shows that in all Nordic countries, the share of persons getting together with their family on a weekly basis is similar across the three groups.

Figure 25: Share of persons getting together with friends every week by level of disability among persons 16 years or older living in private households.

Year: 2022. Data for Iceland and the EU27 not available.

Source: Eurostat [ilc_scp35]

The fourth indicator in this section is persons getting together with friends every week by level of disability, shown in Figure 25. The graph shows that weekly contact with friends is consistently lower among persons with severe disabilities than those without disabilities in all Nordic countries shown. While the differences are smaller than for participation in cultural or sport activities, the pattern still points to more limited social interaction among persons with severe disabilities.

Figure 26: Share of persons feeling left out from society by level of disability among persons aged 16 years and older living in private households.

Year: 2022. Data not available for Iceland.

Source: Eurostat [ilc_pw12]

The fifth indicator is persons feeling left out from society by level of disability, shown in Figure 26. The graph shows that in all Nordic countries, persons with severe disabilities are most likely to feel left out from society, while those without disabilities are least likely to feel left out. The widest gap between persons with severe disabilities and those without disabilities is observed in Sweden (31 percentage points). Compared to the EU average, people in Nordic countries are more likely to feel left out from society across all categories, except for persons with some or no disabilities in Norway.

Figure 27: Perceived strong social support by level of disability among persons aged 15 years and older living in private households. Year: 2019.

Source: Eurostat [hlth_ehis_ss1d]

The sixth indicator is perceived social support by level of disability. The indicator has three measurements: strong social support, moderate social support and poor social support. The graph in Figure 27 shows that in all Nordic countries, persons with disabilities are less likely to report strong social support than those without disabilities. The graph also shows that the share of persons with strong social support varies considerably across Nordic countries.

Figure 28: Share of persons participating in formal voluntary activities by level of disability among persons aged 16 years and older living in private households.

Year: 2022. Data not available for Iceland.

Source: Eurostat [ilc_scp39]

The seventh indicator in this section is persons participating in formal voluntary activities by level of disability, shown in Figure 28. This indicator captures involvement in organised voluntary activities rather than informal contact alone. The graph shows that persons with disabilities participate less often in formal voluntary activities than those without disabilities, indicating unequal access to organised forms of civic engagement.