Education and Skills

What are the most popular hobbies among retirees?

In the United Kingdom, reading is the most popular hobby among retirees.

In the United Kingdom, reading is the most popular hobby among retirees. Image: Unsplash/Clay Banks

Anna Fleck
Data Journalist, Statista
  • A new survey from Statista reveals the most popular hobbies for retirees in the United States and the United Kingdom.
  • Cooking and baking came out top in the US, while reading was the most preferred hobby in the UK.
  • Socializing was slightly more popular among British retirees than Americans.

Cooking and baking is the most popular hobby among retirees in the United States with nearly half of all respondents saying it is one of their pastimes, according to the latest wave of data from Statista’s Consumer Insights. This is followed by reading (42 percent), caring for pets (39 percent) and gardening (34 percent).

In the United Kingdom, reading was the top pick, with a high 59 percent of respondents saying they enjoyed the hobby. Gardening and planting also came higher up the ranking (46 percent), followed by traveling (44 percent). Meanwhile, just under a third of all respondents in both countries said they enjoy outdoor activities.

Socializing was slightly more popular among British retirees than Americans, with roughly a quarter of respondents selecting it as a hobby (24 percent) versus 18 percent in the U.S., where it ranked tenth, after board games (21 percent) and video gaming (19 percent).

Graphic showing most popular hobbies among retirees in the US and UK
Outdoor activities ranked fairly low down the list for both US and UK retirees. Image: Statista
Have you read?
Discover

What is the World Economic Forum doing to improve healthcare systems?

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

Sign up for free

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Stay up to date:

Retail, Consumer Goods and Lifestyle

Share:
The Big Picture
Explore and monitor how Retail, Consumer Goods and Lifestyle is affecting economies, industries and global issues
A hand holding a looking glass by a lake
Crowdsource Innovation
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
World Economic Forum logo
Global Agenda

The Agenda Weekly

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

Subscribe today

You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.

Why younger generations need critical thinking, fact-checking and media verification to stay safe online

Agustina Callegari and Adeline Hulin

October 31, 2024

Skills for the future: 4 ways to help workers transition to the digital economy

About us

Engage with us

  • Sign in
  • Partner with us
  • Become a member
  • Sign up for our press releases
  • Subscribe to our newsletters
  • Contact us

Quick links

Language editions

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

Sitemap

© 2024 World Economic Forum