Life's a beach with fish a bonus

By THERESA GARNER

Pity the blokes who will today be dragged around the Boxing Day sales. For as we head into a new millennium, two entrenched gender stereotypes go with us as New Zealanders - women love to shop and men love to fish.

But a love of the beach is embedded in the New Zealand psyche, and given the major differences in the sexes, a visit to the coastline seems an ideal compromise for couples debating how to spend an afternoon.

A Herald-DigiPoll survey, which asked people to choose their preferred way of spending an afternoon from a given list, puts going to the beach way out in front, at 21.1 per cent.

We are a country of fresh-air fiends, it would seem, as the next favourite choices are walking in the park, followed by playing sport and fishing.

But there are major differences between the sexes.

For 25.1 per cent of women, the beach is tops, but given their way, 22.3 per cent of men would rather be fishing, closely followed by the 21.1 per cent who would choose to play sport.

In stark contrast, just 3.6 per cent of women would choose to fish and 7 per cent would choose to play sport.

Instead, 14.3 per cent would prefer to shop, compared with 1.2 per cent of men, and 17.6 per cent of women would read, compared with just 5.1 per cent of men.

Overall, watching TV was the least preferred way to spend free time, with just 1.6 per cent of us admitting that our idea of a great afternoon was blobbing out on the couch.

Also way down on the list were spending time on the Internet (3.3 per cent of men and 2.7 per cent of women, or napping (3.6 per cent of women, 1.8 per cent of men).

The survey blows a few myths, including that napping is the domain of older people.

But those over 40 were more likely to want to walk in the park or read than indulge in the shopping and sport preferred by their younger friends.

And given the frenetic pace of the biggest city, it is not a surprise that Aucklanders were more likely to indulge in restful pursuits such as reading, watching TV, listening to music and napping, than people in the rest of the country.