“The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) commissioned researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) to undertake analysis of Understanding Society data to develop the evidence base on the wellbeing impacts of cultural engagement and sport participation. This work gives us new evidence of the link between our policies and the social impacts of engagement in both sport and culture…

The aims of the analysis presented in this report are:

• To investigate the association between sport participation and cultural engagement and a range of social outcomes (e.g. on measures of health, education, employment and civic participation).
• To explore indicative financial values associated with identified social impacts of engagement in culture and sport (e.g. on measures of health, education, employment and civic participation). We assess impacts on public sector costs savings. (p.6)

“[Key Findings]

The social benefits of culture and sport are wide ranging. We found that a range of social impacts were statistically significantly associated with both culture and sport engagement. These are:

Health impacts:

• Those engaging with the arts as an audience member were 5.4% more likely to report good health.
• Sports participants were 14.1% more likely to report good health than non-participants.

Education impacts:

• Participants in arts are 14.1% more likely to report an intention to go on to further education.

Economic productivity related impacts:

• Unemployed people who engage with the arts as an audience member were 12% more likely to have looked for a job in the last four weeks when compared with unemployed people who had not engaged with the arts.
• Unemployed people who participate in sports are 11% more likely than non-participants to have looked for a job in the last four weeks

Civic participation impacts:

• People who engage with the arts as an audience member are 6% more likely to have volunteered frequently (once a fortnight or more).
• People who participate in sport are 3% more likely to volunteer frequently.
• Those who engage with the arts as an audience member are also gave £50 per person more in charitable donations over the last year.
• People who participate in sport gave £25 more per person in charitable donations over the last year..” (p.9)