The study, Leisure contexts in adolescence and their effects on adult outcomes, was carried out by the Institute of Education and launched alongside the Green Paper for Youth last month. It analyses the impact of youth activities on a group of 6,000 people born in the 1970s and the effects their activities at age 16 have had in later life.
Professor John Bynner, one of the authors, said that the findings were 'broadly' representative of today's society.
He said, 'Youth clubs, partly, but not entirely, because of the kind of young people they attract, are associated with negative outcomes.'
But he said that former children's minister Margaret Hodge had put her own slant on the preliminary findings released in January 2005 when she said that young people would be 'better off at home watching television' than at a youth club that just offers a 'place to go'.
Professor Bynner said it was true that those who attended out-of-school clubs that lacked structure were more likely to 'smoke, display anti-social behaviour and turn to crime', but that the point of the research was to analyse 'how engagement in different kinds of leisure context relate to the kinds of adult these young people become'.
The research found that engagement in structured activities, such as uniformed youth organisations and sports clubs, were associated with positive outcomes in adulthood.
Professor Bynner suggested giving youth clubs a 'structured curriculum'
while not alienating the young people who attend them. But he said that the data needed 'more unscrambling' to correct for possible biases.
Tim Gill, a play consultant and freelance writer, said that while the study might give the youth sector 'pause for thought', it revealed nothing about the benefits of free play or unstructured activities for younger age groups.
He said, 'My biggest concern is that the Government's agendas around childcare and extended schools, combined with parents' growing tendency to programme their kids' free time, will leave many children with 24/7 schedules and no time or space at all to call their own. And that can't be good for their long-term journey into independent adulthood.'
