Sports Participation in Singapore

Measuring Sports Participation in Singapore

The National Sport Participation Survey (NSPS) is Singapore’s only annual national survey on sport and exercise participation among citizens and permanent residents aged 13 years old and above. Data is captured via face-to-face interviews among randomly selected households from the Department of Statistics. Started in 1987, NSPS was conducted every five years, and in between the years, a smaller scale study “Sport Index” was deployed to capture annual data for trending analyses. Insights from the survey is used to shape the policies and strategies for sport programmes, initiatives, infrastructures, and campaigns for residents to stay active and well.

In 2015, NSPS was converted to an annual survey with monthly interviews accumulating to a sample size of at least 4,500 per year. This shift enabled more robust representation of sport and exercise behaviours and trends across the year, together with insights on participation profiles, motivations and barriers to participation, and the health and social benefit they experienced from being active.

NSPS annual results from 2015 are accessible on https://go.gov.sg/sportdexsg