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Young People's Leisure Contexts and their Relation to Adult Outcomes

Leisure activity plays a significant role in identity formation during the teens, both reinforcing previous developmental trends and shaping new ones. The context for leisure activity—youth club, church club, sports club, and so on—is important in signifying the probable social mix and interactions of the young people participating. This paper summarises findings from exploratory research using age-16 data from the 1970 British Birth Cohort Study (BCS70) to investigate the relation of age-16 leisure contexts to later adult outcomes, taking account of the family background and individual characteristics that predict participation in these contexts. Using logistic regression modelling, a range of binary outcome variables indicating experience of social exclusion at age 30 were regressed on variables measuring frequency of participation in different types of leisure activity, holding constant prior family circumstances and developmental characteristics. The analysis demonstrated the attraction of youth clubs, compared with other out-of-school activities, for young people with disadvantaged backgrounds and poor school achievement. Over and above these latter factors, youth club participation, compared with other forms of activity, was associated with increased probability of social exclusion outcomes, up to the age of 30, including lack of qualifications, unemployment, smoking, drinking, and crime. Other settings such as sports clubs and church clubs showed no associations of this kind or associations in the opposite direction. It was concluded that youth clubs are important settings for positive influence and inhibiting social exclusion processes, but more development of the provision in more structured directions is needed.