In the lead up to the 5k parkruns last weekend, there was a fair amount of publicity promoting parkrun and 'Women in Sport'. I was wondering if there was any impact from the publicity? Did the female numbers increase?
I looked at the number of male and female finishers for the 11 parkruns in Co Cork for the 28th of February and the 7th of March 2026. The results suggest that the number of female participants increased by about 4% on the 7th of March compared to the previous week.
There are some caveats however...
The stats don't include the 'UKNOWN' finishers in the results. I assume the male/female percentages for the unknowns is the same as the overall percentages but it's impossible to be sure.
These are the stats for just two Saturdays so the sample size is small. A 4% increase is pretty small and some of that may due to a natural week to week variability.
Out of the eleven 5k parkruns in Cork, female participation was up in 6, down in 4 and the same for 1. This means that there wasn't a universal increase for all events even though the overall average increased.
For the 7th of March, these are the 11 events in order of female participation...
1. Bere Island at 74.2%, up from 61.5% the previous week.
2. Castlehaven at 70.6%, up from 38.1% the previous week.
3. Glengarriff at 62.9%, up from 56.6% the previous week.
4. Youghal at 56.9%, up from 45.9% the previous week.
5. Mallow at 51.1%, down from 52.3% the previous week.
6. Ballincollig at 48.1%, up from 46.8% the previous week.
7. Tramore Valley Park at 46.4%, down from 49.6% the previous week.
8. Midleton at 45.4%, up from 44.5% the previous week.
9. Macroom at 43.8%, down from 44.1% the previous week.
10. Clonakilty at 40.4%, up from 35.6% the previous week.
11. Glen River at 40%, the same as the previous week.
It's interesting that the top 3 in terms of female participation were all in west Cork. While the numbers at Castlehaven are very low and it doesn't take much to have a huge variation in the percentages, Bere Is and Glengarriff were still at 1 and 2 the previous week.
Again, it's worth noting that the stats above are from just two Saturdays and a lot more data points are needed to get an accurate picture. It does though suggest a trend in the differences between events.
In conclusion... I started looking at the stats trying to see if the 'Women in Sport' campaign had any impact and the answer for that question was not a completely conclusive 4%.
While looking at the data, another question popped up... why is the female participation in some events higher than others? I'm not sure there is a simple answer.
