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Exploring the Economic Choice to

Participate in Sport: Results from the
2002 General Household Survey
a
Paul Downward
a
Institute of Sport and Leisure Policy, School of Sport and
Exercise Sciences , Loughborough University , Leicestershire
Published online: 06 Nov 2007.

To cite this article: Paul Downward (2007) Exploring the Economic Choice to Participate in Sport:
Results from the 2002 General Household Survey, International Review of Applied Economics, 21:5,
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 International Review of Applied Economics,
Vol. 21, No. 5, 633–653, December 2007

Exploring the Economic Choice to Participate in Sport:

Results from the 2002 General Household Survey

PAUL DOWNWARD
Institute of Sport and Leisure Policy, School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Loughborough
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University, Leicestershire
International
10.1080/02692170701474710
CIRA_A_247350.sgm
0269-2171
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Taylor
502007
21
Dr
p.downward@lboro.ac.uk
00000December
PaulDownward
and
& Article
Francis
(print)/1465-3486
Francis
Review2007
of Applied
(online)
Economics

ABSTRACT This article explores the decision to participate in sports activities in the
United Kingdom using a qualitative choice framework. The consistency of the results with
neoclassical theories of leisure, and heterodox economic theory, which embraces a psycho-
logical view of decision making and structure of demand, is assessed. Finding more support
for the latter perspective, the implications of this for sports policy are discussed.

KEY WORDS: Sports, participation, choice behaviour

JEL CLASSIFICATIONS: B41, C2, D11, D12

Introduction
Sports participation is now firmly located on the public policy agenda of the UK.1
This article aims to provide critical comment on this agenda, through further
developing the inferential statistical analysis of participation and, in particular, by
assessing these results in the light of economic theories of sports participation. This
is important because there has been little explicit reference to economic theories of
sports participation in the academic and policy literatures. This implies, reflecting
the epistemologies of different disciplines, that the research methods that are
employed in investigating sports participation are typically qualitative or descrip-
tive statistical analysis. Moreover, where inferential statistical analysis has been
employed, there has been little attempt to relate the results to theory.
The next section briefly outlines the policy environment concerning sport partic-
ipation in the UK. The third section then briefly reviews the literature on economic
theories of sport participation, and draws a distinction between neoclassical and
heterodox contributions. In the fourth section the existing inferential empirical
evidence is reviewed. The fifth section then outlines a general ‘reduced-form’
model of sport participation, based upon insights from the economics literature,
and implicitly upon current policy concerns, to motivate the empirical work of this

Correspondence Address: Dr Paul Downward, Institute of Sport and Leisure Policy, School of Sport and
Exercise Sciences, Loughborough University, Leicestershire LE11 3TU. Tel: +44 (0)1509 226365; E-mail:
p.downward@lboro.ac.uk

ISSN 0269-2171 print; ISSN 1465-3486 online/07/050633-21 © 2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/02692170701474710
 634 P. Downward

article. The sixth and seventh sections then report the data and method of analysis
employed, as well as the main results of the research, respectively. Conclusions
then follow.
In brief the article argues that the predictions from the empirical analysis reveal
only limited support for the typically assumed neoclassical economic determi-
nants of sports demand, such as income and work hours, and that this applies at
an aggregated level of analysis. In contrast a variety of individual and social char-
acteristics appear to be more highly prevalent at this aggregated level and partic-
ularly when considering specific activities. In this regard a hierarchical structure
of demand is revealed. Moreover, in these activities, it is shown that there is strong
evidence of interdependent demands. These results are highly resonant of hetero-
dox theories.
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It should be noted at this point that such conclusions are generated from a
consideration of the statistical significance or not of variables that are relevant to
particular theories, the strength of any relationships found and the nature of these
relationships, that is, their incremental or continuous nature. For example, as
discussed below, incremental change is emphasised in heterodox theories of
choice, as is participation in multiple activities, but these are not emphasised in
neoclassical theories.
The need for such a range of decision criteria is, in part, because the model is of
a reduced form nature. More fundamentally, however, any regression analysis
whether referring to a structural model or reduced form equation, as a correlation
of data between variables, can be viewed as consistent with a number of different
theoretical explanations if they refer to similar variables. The seventh section of the
article thus concludes by examining the policy ramifications of these findings.

The UK Policy Context

The importance of sports participation to public policy in the UK has recently
been emphasised by ‘Game Plan, a strategy for delivering Government’s sport
and physical activity objectives’ in 2002 (DCMS/Strategy Unit, 2002). This docu-
ment, which stresses the concern for inequities in sports participation coupled
with concern over the health implications of sedentary lifestyles, has led Sport
England, one of the sports policy implementing bodies in the UK, associated with
raising participation levels, to develop a suggested response encapsulated in ‘The
Framework for Sport in England, Making England an Active and Successful
Sporting Nation (TFFSIE)’ (Sport England, 2004a). Policy consultation and basic
descriptive analysis (Sport England, 2004b) suggests that the following ‘drivers’
cause changes in participation, and should be the fulcrum and/or target for
policy intervention.
It is argued that ‘ageing’ affects participation by reducing the physical ability to
participate and, moreover, raises the concentration of any sport ‘illiteracy’
amongst the population at large. ‘Time pressures’ are associated with the reported
increased work hours for employees in the UK, which are arguably reducing
participation. These time constraints feed through into the ability of ‘volunteers
and professionals’ to support sport and whom are themselves identified as key
drivers of change. ‘Well-being and obesity’ is identified as reflecting increasingly
sedentary lifestyles, constraining participation, whilst ‘levels of investment’ which
are associated with the provision of facilities in the locality to encourage participa-
tion, need to be raised. ‘Education’ is identified as having the potential to harness
 Exploring the Economic Choice to Participate in Sport 635

the process in which tastes for sport are formed as well as providing opportunities
to access sport directly through facilities and indirectly through education’s poten-
tial to raise employment and income opportunities. In this respect ‘variations in
access’ to sport, the final driver for change, is clearly perceived to be important. It
is clear, however, that this will also be dependent upon the additional constraints
implied by any sex and ethnic discrimination. The current research, which
explores participation decisions in a large-scale inferential exercise, and which
explores economic theory in understanding these decisions, thus provides an
opportunity to assess these policy initiatives.

Economic Theories of Participation

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Elsewhere, Gratton and Tice (1991), Downward (2004), Burgham and Downward
(2005) review economic theories of participation in some detail. In this section a
brief resume of these theories are presented. Two broad approaches can be identi-
fied as relevant to sports decision making in the economic literature: neoclassical
and heterodox approaches.
Neoclassical approaches employ a rational-choice framework to model the indi-
vidual’s maximisation of their subjective utility subject to constraints. As Gratton
and Taylor (2000) illustrate, the constraints can vary. In the most simple case the
demand for leisure emerges from the ‘dual-decision’ hypothesis of households. In
the income-leisure trade-off model of labour supply, leisure is defined as the
(residual) dual of work, which provides income for consumption. Leisure has an
explicit opportunity cost in the wage-rate. Leisure is ‘non-economic’ and refers to
the use of ‘non-obligated’ time whose demand reflects the trade-off of the utility
received from consumption and the disutility received from work. More recent
variants explicitly explore the consumption of time and extend the constraints to
explore those imposed by individuals being part of a household. The indirect
emphasis on leisure is reflected in these recent contributions.
In terms of seminal works, Linder (1970) and Becker (1976) have explicitly inte-
grated time allocation into the consumption decision. In the latter case—often
referred to as ‘new household economics’—the duality between work and leisure
is eroded which removes the distinction between consumption and production. It
is emphasised that ‘time’ and ‘market goods’ combine in the household to produce
the goods that yield utility from consumption. An innovation of Becker’s work is
that the household is the appropriate unit of analysis in which members ‘invest’ in
human capital, skills and capabilities to provide the greatest return for the house-
hold. Yet, Becker (1976, p. 100) is concerned to remove the concept of leisure from
analysis.
Drawing upon an optimising framework, the inevitable methodological empha-
sis of these theories is to predict the outcomes of decisions, rather than to refer to
more literal descriptions of behaviour. Yet, as is well recognised in consumer
theory, and noted in the sports context by Gratton and Taylor (2000), the predic-
tions from the theories are not clear a priori, but conditional. One might predict
that participation in sports, as the consumption of non-contractually obligated
time is easier for those with higher incomes. This is because, acceptable incomes
could be maintained while committing more time to sport. On the other hand,
higher incomes impose a higher opportunity cost in the form of consumption
opportunities, thus there is an incentive to work longer hours. Empirically, the
outcome will reflect the balance of the ‘income’ and ‘substitution’ effects that
 636 P. Downward

would determine participation as just described respectively. For ‘normal goods’,

it is assumed that sports participation would increase. This puts an implicit restric-
tion upon the nature of consumer preferences which are, in general, assumed to be
invariant.
In contrast, heterodox economic approaches do not make the same methodolog-
ical assumptions but draw upon a wider social-scientific literature for inspiration.2
For example, in general psychological theories of consumption, two main features
distinguish the approach from neoclassical economics. First, as Scitovsky (1976)
argues, in as much that psychological notions such as ‘sensation seeking’, ‘arousal’
or ‘anxiety’ are a source of demand for sports activities, as the individual balances
boredom and stimulation, this suggests that utility is not given as in the neoclassi-
cal model. In fact, Scitovsky argues that consumption skills, and hence enjoyment
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or utility, need to be learned and will evolve. Second, it is argued that decision
making involves the hierarchical decomposition of complexity into manageable
subsets, in which a limited range of alternative options are assessed following rule-
based or heuristic schemes. There are a number of reasons for this.
The bounded rationality of agents can force agents to satisfice over a range of
needs rather than to optimise utility (Earl, 1983, 1986, 1995). Psychological theories
of consumption thus distinguish between wants and needs in that the former
evolve from the latter and are potentially satiable, unlike the treatment of utility in
neoclassical economics. Satiation allows thresholds of satisfaction to be reached in
hierarchical deliberation. Moreover, in so doing, the revealed hierarchical struc-
ture of demand may be underpinned by different levels of needs, for example,
linked to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy. Wants are thus expressions of particular
categories of needs (Lutz & Lux, 1979).
The hierarchical separability of needs suggests that consumption activities may
be structured along broad categories of goods. In turn this implies that incremental
rises in income are required to purchase new categories of goods and income rises
are likely to be more important than prices in consumption decisions, as the latter
may only ration choice within particular classes or categories of goods (Lavoie,
1994). As Gratton and Tice (1991) argue, in the context of sport and leisure this
suggests a hierarchical structure of demands such that those on lower incomes,
say, will focus less on leisure than the priorities of food, housing, and so forth.
More generally it suggests that the factors that might promote a desire to allocate
time to sport or leisure may not necessarily be the same as those which determine
which specific activities are undertaken as illustrated in swimming volunteering
by Burgham and Downward (2005). Further, Brandenberg et al. (1982) and Wilson
(2004) show, respectively, that the choice to participate and volunteer in sports
activity emerges sequentially as thresholds of commitment for the individual are
established based upon appraisals of the perceived costs and benefits of their
choices.
Post-Keynesian consumer choice theory directly emphasises the themes, that util-
ity or wants/needs are endogenous, consumption is hierarchically organised and
that income effects will dominate substitution effects. However, the Post-Keynesian
approach also takes explicit account of the individual’s links to wider social behav-
iour because of ‘learning by doing’ and consumption-spillover effects. For example,
while Adams et al. (1968) show that consumers need to acquire the equipment and
skills required to consume complex goods, such as water-sport activities, it is also
postulated, drawing upon Veblen (1925) and Galbraith (1958), that individual pref-
erences are shaped explicitly by social values and classes. In this regard ‘utility’ can
 Exploring the Economic Choice to Participate in Sport 637

be thought of as derived from interdependent preferences and, as a result, demands

are interdependent (Lavoie, 1992, 1994, 2004; see also Leibenstein, 1950).3
The postulated interdependence is not just in the sense of neoclassical econom-
ics, as implied through the adding-up restriction of the budget constraint applying
to individual commodities or categories of commodities, but more fundamentally
that bundles of consumption activities are directly preferred. This is because of the
spillover effects of collective consumption activities as an individual, but also
because of their connection with the consumption of others.4 An obvious illustra-
tion of these ideas, which shows how the approaches draw upon different social
science traditions is evident in the sociological analyses of leisure, which argue that
activities are ‘gendered’ and typically promote ‘masculinity’ in organised compet-
itive forms, or, say, ‘femininity’ in emphasising ideal body types or conforming to
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family-oriented activities. Such theories emphasise that individuals can accept and
shape their identities and tastes as much as passively respond to social constraints
in making their choices (Aitchison & Jordan, 1998; Scratton & Watson, 1999; Horne
& Flemming, 2000; Kay, 2004).
This brief discussion serves to highlight the wide variety of factors that may
shape the sports participation decision and, indeed, the similarity and differences
of predictions and/or explanations that might be offered. Table 1 illustrates these
in summary. The last two columns are of note. Here it is revealed that the empha-
sised differences between the theories lies between the neoclassical economic and
heterodox economic accounts. This is because of the latter’s concern for descrip-
tive relevance in referring to problems of incomplete information and specific
social relations as opposed to perfectly informed agents. In this specific sense one
can argue that there is an ‘explanatory’ as well as a ‘predictive’ intent in the

Table 1. Summary of theories of participation

Factors affecting Methodological
Theory participation Emphasis Predictions

Neoclassical economic
Income-leisure Maximise utility Prediction Participation demand varies
subject to income/time directly with income, inversely
constraint with work hours
New household Maximise utility Prediction As above, but domestic
subject to income/ activity will reduce
time/domestic participation demand
production constraint
Heterodox economic/
social science
Psychological Hierarchical choice Explanation/ Participation varies with
influenced by prediction income, previous participation
experience, discrete
frames of commitment
Post-Keynesian As above and social Explanation/ Participation also varies with
relations prediction socio-economic status and that
of identified groupings
Sociological Choice influenced by Explanation/ Participation varies with
dialectic of identity prediction gender, previous
formation participation, participation of
identified groupings
 638 P. Downward

heterodox theories. This is in not treating the concepts of explanation and predic-
tion as equivalent.
As indicated in the introduction, therefore, distinguishing between the theo-
ries requires reference to a range of criteria and the emphasis of the results.
Whilst the neoclassical theories emphasise income, time and domestic work
influences, the heterodox economic approaches emphasise interdependent and
hierarchical demands and identity formation, social relations or positions.
However, there is some strong commonality in the sense that income is empha-
sised in both cases but the conceptual explanations are different. In the neoclas-
sical case this will be linked to the agents’ rational response, with given tastes, to
a change in the feasible set facing the consumer resulting from the change in the
wage-rate. In the heterodox case this will be linked to the facilitation of access to
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different consumption categories and linked to social class. Likewise in the case
of gender and household factors, neoclassical economics would emphasise indi-
vidual choice, whilst heterodox economics emphasises identities and gender
constraints.
The impact of this variety of factors upon sports participation is now assessed
empirically in the context of large-scale inferential statistical analysis. This is by
firstly reviewing the existing literature and then presenting the results of the
current research.

Empirical Research
The existing studies in both the USA and the UK do not make any explicit refer-
ence to economic theory, though typically support for elements of these theories
are implied in the relatively sparse large-scale inferential empirical work on sports
(and leisure) participation. In the USA, for example, using OLS regression models,
Adams et al. (1966) explored the participation of 1,352 households in swimming,
fishing and boating in the Delaware Estuary. Davidson (1967) and Davidson et al.
(1969) investigated scenic driving using a survey, from 1959, of 922 households
whilst Adams et al. (1968) explored the recreational use of the Tennessee Valley
Authority lakes.
In a comprehensive piece of work Cicchetti et al. (1969) examined 24 activities in
two data-sets: the 1960 National Recreation Survey and the 1965 Survey of
Outdoor Recreation for the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation. They employed a two-
step econometric exercise in which the decision to participate, and then its
frequency in days was modelled by OLS regressions. In summary this US litera-
ture suggests that there is a consistent rise in participation for those respondents
that are younger, male, receive a higher income, are white and more educated.
There is also some evidence that having children reduces participation.
In the UK the most comprehensive inferential analyses of large-scale data is
provided by Gratton and Tice (1991) Farrell and Shields (2002) and Downward
(2004). In the former case a two-step econometric exercise is conducted upon data
from the (1987) Health and Lifestyle Survey, directly motivated by Cicchetti et al.
(1969), to model the factors affecting participation and then its intensity in a variety
of sports. Participation or not was measured as a categorical variable and the inten-
sity of participation constructed from knowledge of the duration of participation
and the likely use of calories from participation. However, the focus here is upon
any sports activity generally. The main results from the analysis of the decision to
participate, obtained by the use of a logistic regression, indicate that increasing
 Exploring the Economic Choice to Participate in Sport 639

age, being female and being subjected to some form of illness reduce participation.
In contrast rising incomes, being involved in a number of activities and being
employed part-time promote participation.
Farrell and Shields (2002) make use of the 1997 Health Survey to explore the rela-
tive influence of economic and demographic factors on participation in the top ten
sports. In an innovative approach, they employ a random-effects probit regression
to capture the impact of household membership on individual decisions. With the
exception of aerobics and swimming, they find that males participate more than
females, and in all cases declines in participation are identified with increasing age
and being married. The presence of children tends to raise male participation but
not female participation, except in cycling and swimming, but the presence of
dependent infants reduces the probability of participation for both men and
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women. Moreover, the probability of participation generally rises with the level of
education but remains unaffected, somewhat surprisingly, with region, whereas it
rises with drinking and self-reported better health and falls with smoking. Strong
evidence is identified that rising incomes raise the probability of participation and,
that household ‘preferences’ are present in the analysis.5
Finally, Downward (2004) explores 12 sports activities from the 1996 General
Household Survey (GHS) and identifies that whilst income raises the probability
of participation, the size of the effects are small and primarily confined to ‘male’
activities. In contrast, in general, the odds of participating vary most with the sex
of the respondent. As with Farrell and Shields (2002) increased probability of
participation for females is noted in swimming and keep fit, but also netball and
horse riding. In contrast there is a strong male orientation associated with football,
cycling, weight-training, running, rugby and squash. Moreover, as far as the
former activities are concerned, not being single acts as a factor reducing partici-
pation. This is suggestive of more importance being placed on household structure
and gender identities in terms of participation. The presence or not of children is
also a key factor affecting the results, whilst once again, the individual’s percep-
tion of their health is an important determinant of participation.
In summary these investigations tend to suggest that rising incomes, being more
healthy, male and younger tend to raise participation whilst household factors
such as the presence of children can reduce participation. These predictions are
broadly consistent with the insights of the range of theories discussed in the previ-
ous section. For example, the significance of income suggest that the predictions of
the income-leisure trade-off model for normal goods have some validity. Likewise
it is consistent with the view that income can facilitate access to sports and leisure
in accordance to hierarchical demand. So too, observations that household charac-
teristics, such as the presence of children in the household and female participation
being lower, could be evidence of both the new household economics approach, in
which females utility maximise by specialising in, say, child care, but also hetero-
dox views that identities and tastes are formed in the household and these affect
choices.
In contrast, there are interesting specific findings from Gratton and Tice (1991)
that tend to offer support for the heterodox theories’ distinct predictions. The first
is that part-time employment is found to promote participation unlike other
employment categories, including being retired, unemployed or being a student in
which increased time for participation is available. This could be suggestive of
individuals reaching an income threshold over which participation can be
afforded as implied in hierarchical conceptions of decisions, Moreover, they also
 640 P. Downward

find that participation in one activity is strongly associated with participation in

another activity. This is evidence of the interdependent nature of demand
discussed above in the heterodox theories. These issues are returned to in discuss-
ing the results of this research.
In closing this section, however, a final and important point worth noting
concerns the reliability of the empirical work above. Each of the previous studies
have shortcomings. The most notable of these concerns the early US work in which
OLS regressions were employed on binary data measuring participation or not in
various activities. This suggests that the error variances were heteroscedastic, and
as such the estimated coefficients inefficient. In particular, one cannot assume that
the predictions of the model lie between zero and one as is required of probabilities
(see Greene, 2000). In the UK context, whilst qualitative dependent variable tech-
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niques were employed, none of the estimates are calculated on weighted data as is
appropriate for large-scale complex survey data, a criticism which also applies to
the US studies (Purdon & Pickering, 2001). As a result coefficients and standard
errors will be biased. Both of these issues are dealt with in the current research.

Sports Participation Model

The discussions of the previous sections indicate the context in which the current
research is offered. It attempts to further assess the contribution of the factors that
affect sports participation, and thereby to help to inform the current policy discus-
sion with reference to theory that is better supported by the evidence. To address
these issues, therefore, this section presents a general, essentially reduced form
model that draws upon all of the previously discussed theoretical and empirical
work. In this regard, as noted earlier, the presence or not of consistent predictions,
and possible strength of effects of variables, or the significance of particular types
of effects, for example incremental versus continuous adjustments, are referred to
in seeking to assess the various theoretical contributions. The latter suggest that
individual identity, social and sporting contexts and experience as well as
economic factors will affect choice. The potential role of these factors is presented
in Figure 1.
To investigate these factors, data from the 2002 General Household Survey
FIGURE 1 Sports participation decisions

(GHS) is employed. Whilst the GHS is an annual survey of thousands of UK house-

holds, it only reports at various intervals on sports and leisure participation. The
last two occasions, prior to the 2002 survey, were 1993 and 1996. The survey inves-
tigates participation for a wide range of sports and leisure activities in the 4 weeks
before the interview with respondents took place, and for the 12 months before the
interview took place. Basically, respondents indicate their participation or not in
an activity over these periods. Data on the frequency of participation is also
collected for the last 4 weeks before the interview.
In this article, the focus is upon the decision to participate or not in the last
4 weeks before the interview for adults aged 16 or over. The General Household
Survey includes a whole array of variables, measuring individual and social,
economic and sporting characteristics that can be used to model the decision to
participate and Table 2 describes their name and measurement according to the
characteristics outlined in Figure 1.
As the sports participation decisions are measured as dichotomous variables, as
implied in the Sp4 variables and anysportw, the following Logistic regression
model is used to estimate the effects of the various factors upon them6
 Exploring the Economic Choice to Participate in Sport 641

 
 



 

 

 
 

  





 


 
 


  
 
   


 
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Figure 1. Sports participation decisions

Table 2. Variables and definitions

Conceptual category Variable name Variable measurement

Individual/social
characteristics:
Age Age Years – continuous
Sex Sex Male or Female
1 = Male, 0 = Female
Ethnicity Whbrit* White British
1 = Yes, 0 = No
Educational Degree, schoola, First degree (equivalent) or more, A levels, O levels
attainment schoolo or equivalent.
1= Yes, 0 = No
(Other or no qualifications is the omitted category)
Marital status Married* Married or Not
1 = Yes 0 = No
Household nadmales Number of adult males in the household
composition
nadfems Number of adult females in the household
n0to4 Number of pre-school children in the household
n5-15 Number of school age children in the household
Health Genhlth General view of health
1 = Not good
2 = Fairly good
3 = Good
Illness Presence of long-standing illness
1 = Yes, 0 = No
 642 P. Downward

Table 2. (continued)
Conceptual category Variable name Variable measurement

limitact If long-standing illness affects activity

1 = Yes, 0 =No
Smoking Cignow Smoke cigarettes nowadays
1 = Yes, 0 = No
Cigarreg Smoke cigar at least once a month
1 = Yes, 0 = No
Pipe Smoke a pipe at least once a month
1 = Yes, 0 = No
Drinking Drinknow Drink alcohol nowadays
1 = Yes, 0 = No
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Drinkamt Amount of alcohol drunk

1 = hardly to 5 = heavily

Economic
characteristics:
Employment status Empman, Prof, Employer or manager, Professional, non-manual,
Nonman, Personal, personal services, skilled manual, partially skilled
Skillman, Semiskill, manual or technical worker, unskilled.
Unskill* 1 = Yes, 0 = No
(other employment status is the omitted category)
Working, Retired, In work, retired from work, or keeping house
Keephous* 1 = Yes, 0 = No
(Not working, unable to work, the omitted category).
Region** North, Mids, South, Northern England and Yorkshire; East and West
Wales, Scotland* Midlands and East Anglia; South West and South
East England; Wales; and Scotland.
1 = Yes, 0 = No
(London is the omitted category)
Access to Motor Usevcl1 Own or use a motor vehicle
Vehicle 1 = Yes, 0 = No.
Income Weekinc Gross household income in £000s
Hours worked Tothrs Total usual hours of work per week
Unpaid hours Unpaidhr Total weekly unpaid hours work

Sports characteristics
Sports participation Sp4walk; Participation in walking of at least 2 miles, sports
Sp401-sp440 activities 1–40 in the last 4 weeks
1 = Yes, 0 = No
Sports volunteering Voltime Hours spent on sports volunteering
1 = Less than one hour per week to 5 = five hours or
more per week
The number of anysportw Participation in at least one activity during the last
sports activities 4 weeks
Leisure Voltime2 Hours spent on arts and other volunteering
volunteering 1 = Less than one hour per week to 5 = five hours or
more per week
The number of arts Numcultw The number of arts and other leisure activities
and leisure activities participated in during the last 4 weeks. These
activities such as watching TV, listening to the radio,
reading, painting, dancing and the arts.

Notes: *In these variables a much wider set of characteristics was investigated initially. However prob-
lems of small sample sizes associated with specific sports required some aggregation of categories.
**In the current research access to facilities is essentially subsumed under these variables.
 Exploring the Economic Choice to Participate in Sport 643

Ln(Pi /1 − Pi ) = â 0 + Σâ j X ji + v i

where Pis the ‘ith’ individual’s probability of participating in a sporting activity,

the Xs are a set of individual and social, economic and sporting characteristics and
v is an inherently heteroscedastic random error term. The latter problem suggests
that some form of correction is made to transform the error terms in estimation, for
example, using Huber-White ‘robust’ errors, which reflect a generalised correction
to allow for non-identical distributions in the regression, for example, of errors
and, derivatively, coefficients. However, two further issues need to be accounted
for. The first is that, as discussed above, weighted data need to be employed based
on the probability weights calculated in the GHS.7 As discussed earlier this
prevents the bias to coefficients and variances that are yielded in estimation on
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unweighted data. The second is that the clustering of the survey responses around
households needs to be accounted for as observations sampled within a household
are not independent.8

Results9
To provide a summary of the analysis, the results of the decision to participate
in any sport (anysportw)—which measures an aspect of total sports participa-
tion and then the top eight physical activities: walking, swimming, keep fit,
cycling, weight training, running, football and golf, plus two additional team
sports, rugby and netball—are discussed. Each of these latter activities could be
thought of as indicative of different types of sport ranging from ‘leisure’ to
competitive team sports. Such a classification is not arbitrary. At the outset of
policy concerns with sports, The Council of Europe (1980) and Rodgers (1978)
developed classifications of leisure, recreation and sport which have become
accepted categories, and are still implied in the 1993 Council of Europe,
European Sports Charter. Rodgers, for example, argues that sports, such as the
team sports examined have four essential elements present. Physical activity, for
a recreational purpose, with frameworks of both organised competition and
institutions. In this regard more leisurely activities such as swimming and
cycling may take place under circumstances in which only the first two elements
are present, whilst some football and golf can embrace competition without
necessarily having a formalised institutional structure. Clearly the same could be
said of netball and rugby, but given that these are minority activities, as indi-
cated in Table 3, the emphasis is likely to be institutionalised. Table 3 reports the
overall participation levels for all of the sports, and then the sample sizes and
the Pseudo R2 for the regressions.10
Table 4 presents the results for participation in any sport (anysportw). The first
column gives the coefficient estimates for β, the second column reports the robust
z-score allowing for clustering on the household and heteroscedasticity, the third
column reports the significance level and the final column the percentage size
effects of the variables on the odds ratios of participation.11 Significant coefficients
at the 5% level in two decimal places are noted in bold.
These results indicate that income (weekinc) and total paid and unpaid hours
worked per week (tothrs unpaidhr) are significant and signed as one might expect
from the income leisure trade-off model for a normal good. Higher income
promotes participation, increased paid and unpaid work hours reduce it. Of
 644 P. Downward

Table 3. Sample of sports

Sport Participation rate % Sample size Pseudo R2

Anysportw 64 11726 0.1681

Walking 35 11726 0.1304
Swimming
• Indoor 12 11726 0.2468
• Outdoor 3 11693 0.2152
Keep fit 12 11726 0.2709
Cycling 9 11726 0.2516
Weight training 6 11653 0.3362
Jogging 5 11693 0.3438
Football
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• Indoor 2 9205 0.4045

• Outdoor 4 11653 0.3535
Golf 5 11726 0.2279
Rugby <1 7871 0.3834
Netball <1 6814 0.3631

course higher income can raise participation from the perspective of a hierarchical
structure of demand too. The size effects are, however, relatively small.
Importantly, stronger influences on participation come from higher educational
levels (degree, schoola, schoolo), work status (working,) and gender (sex). The
latter case confirms the findings that males participate more than females. In
the former cases, this may be partially due to a hidden income effects. Indeed the
correlation matrix (available on request) suggests that this is the case for working
and having a degree with pairwise correlations of 0.3 or greater with income.
However, the fact that the strongest influence is picked up in the categorical
measurements does implicitly support the idea that thresholds are an important
feature of decisions. This is implied, too, in considering that being an employer
(empman) or professional (prof) raise participation as opposed to other employ-
ment categories.
Other significant findings are connected with the household. As well as females
participating less than males, the research also indicates that being a housekeeper
(keephous) and having children that are infants or of school age (n0to4, n5to15)
both reduce participation despite being married (married) raising participation.
Likewise increases in the number of adult males and females in the household
(nadfems, nadmales) reduce the probability of participation. The upshot of these
results is that household activity reduces participation as predicted by both the
new-household and heterodox theories.
The results also indicate that lifestyle behaviour affects choices. Whilst drinking
alcohol raises the probability of participation (drinknow, drinkamt), smoking
reduces participation (cignow, pipe). Sports appear to have both a social as well as
health influence upon decisions. The probability of participation in sports
increases with being white (whbrit) and having vehicular transport (usevcl1).
Moreover, there also appears to be strong regional effects upon participation
unlike in Farrell and Shields (2002), a finding reinforced in the results discussed
below.12 This may be indicative of the problems of not weighting the data, as
region is used in the weighting process in the GHS. These factors are suggestive of
the importance of access in terms of facilities, transport and social inclusion.
 Exploring the Economic Choice to Participate in Sport 645

Table 4. Participation in any sport

anysportw Coefficient. z P>z % Effects

empman 0.1896 1.9100 0.0570 20.87

prof 0.2907 1.9500 0.0510 33.74
nonman 0.1016 1.3100 0.1920 10.69
personal −0.0979 −0.6700 0.5050 −9.32
skillman 0.0314 0.3600 0.7200 3.19
semiskill −0.2639 −2.7900 0.0050 −23.20
unskill −0.1874 −1.6000 0.1110 −17.09
degree 0.6169 7.6200 0.0000 85.32
schoola 0.4075 4.3700 0.0000 50.30
schoolo 0.3282 4.6400 0.0000 38.85
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working 0.3226 2.8000 0.0050 38.07

retired 0.2003 1.8900 0.0590 22.18
keephous 0.0765 0.6600 0.5110 7.96
married 0.1614 2.6700 0.0080 17.52
north 0.3908 3.9900 0.0000 47.81
mids 0.3402 3.5000 0.0000 40.52
south 0.5126 5.2300 0.0000 66.96
wales 0.3502 2.6100 0.0090 41.93
scotland 0.5558 4.4600 0.0000 74.34
sex 0.4822 8.8700 0.0000 61.97
whbrit 0.2527 2.5500 0.0110 28.75
genhlth 0.2869 7.6200 0.0000 33.22
illness 0.1441 2.1100 0.0350 15.50
limitact −0.4727 −6.4300 0.0000 −37.67
cignow −0.4426 −8.0100 0.0000 −35.76
cigarreg 0.0857 0.5400 0.5860 8.95
pipe −0.7554 −2.7100 0.0070 −53.02
drinknow 0.3287 3.0600 0.0020 38.92
usevcl1 0.3347 4.7600 0.0000 39.75
age −0.0260 −10.6900 0.0000 −2.57
drinkamt 0.1376 4.9400 0.0000 14.75
n0to4 −0.3814 −5.9300 0.0000 −31.71
n5to15 −0.1277 −3.5000 0.0000 −11.99
nadfems −0.1800 −3.7400 0.0000 −16.48
nadmales −0.1873 −3.8600 0.0000 −17.08
weekinc 0.2338 2.3400 0.0190 26.34
tothrs −0.0080 −3.5400 0.0000 −0.79
unpaidhr −0.0356 −2.3300 0.0200 −3.49
voltime 0.3202 5.7300 0.0000 37.74
voltime2 0.0590 1.2200 0.2240 6.08
numcultw 0.2976 12.6600 0.0000 34.66

Finally there is evidence that participating in a number of other leisure activities

(numcultw) and volunteering (voltime) raise participation in sport. These results
are indicative of interdependent demands or preferences for specific activities as
discussed in the heterodox economic theories.
To further investigate these issues, regressions were also run for the activities
noted earlier. Table 5 presents the results for walking. This is the most participated
in leisure activity overall with 35% of participants suggesting that that they had
 646 P. Downward

Table 5. Walking
Walking Coefficient. z P>z % Effects

empman 0.1083 1.1500 0.2520 11.44

prof 0.1924 1.5600 0.1200 21.22
nonman 0.1724 2.2700 0.0230 18.82
personal 0.1032 0.7300 0.4680 10.87
skillman −0.0290 −0.3300 0.7420 −2.86
semiskill 0.0999 1.0400 0.2980 10.50
unskill 0.1640 1.3500 0.1780 17.82
degree 0.4444 5.9500 0.0000 55.96
schoola 0.1743 1.9200 0.0550 19.05
schoolo 0.2474 3.3400 0.0010 28.07
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working 0.0421 0.3600 0.7170 4.30

retired −0.2748 −2.5400 0.0110 −24.03
keephous 0.3206 2.8000 0.0050 37.79
married 0.3935 6.5300 0.0000 48.22
north 0.3947 4.0900 0.0000 48.39
mids 0.2571 2.6800 0.0070 29.31
south 0.3559 3.6700 0.0000 42.75
wales 0.4264 3.2000 0.0010 53.17
scotland 0.6888 6.0700 0.0000 99.13
sex −0.0244 −0.4900 0.6230 −2.41
whbrit 0.1017 1.0300 0.3020 10.71
genhlth 0.1918 4.9600 0.0000 21.14
illness 0.1254 1.9900 0.0470 13.36
limitact −0.3421 −4.6000 0.0000 −28.97
cignow −0.1030 −1.9100 0.0560 −9.79
cigarreg 0.2394 1.7900 0.0740 27.04
pipe −0.0244 −0.0900 0.9280 −2.41
drinknow 0.1546 1.4300 0.1530 16.72
usevcl1 0.0249 0.3500 0.7280 2.52
age 0.0151 6.4200 0.0000 1.52
drinkamt 0.0200 0.7300 0.4640 2.02
n0to4 −0.2410 −3.6500 0.0000 −21.42
n5to15 −0.1139 −3.2000 0.0010 −10.76
nadfems −0.0734 −1.5300 0.1250 −7.07
nadmales −0.2291 −4.7400 0.0000 −20.47
weekinc 0.0114 0.4300 0.6670 1.15
tothrs −0.0054 −2.5100 0.0120 −0.54
unpaidhr −0.0124 −0.8200 0.4120 −1.24
voltime −0.0418 −1.2400 0.2160 −4.09
voltime2 0.0573 1.5000 0.1320 5.90
numcultw 0.1615 7.3000 0.0000 17.53
numsportw 0.4596 23.2400 0.0000 58.34

walked or hiked for two miles or more over the last four weeks. In contrast to
anysports, the probability of walking is not associated with rises in income (week-
inc) though there is evidence of weak substitution effects as working longer hours
(tothrs) reduces the probability of participation. However higher education levels
(degree, schoola, schoolo) raise the probability of walking activity, which is again
suggestive of threshold effects associated with decision making. Significantly,
 Exploring the Economic Choice to Participate in Sport 647

occupational status does not influence walking particularly, with the exception of
non-manual work (nonman), a finding illustrated further by the insignificance of
the ‘working’ category. In contrast being a housekeeper and married (keephous,
married) does promote participation whereas the presence of infants, children and
more adult males does reduce the probability of walking activity (n0to4, n5to15
and nadmales). There is some evidence, thus, that walking places marginally less
household constraints on individuals than sports as a whole. The results also show
that health promotes walking. A factor that is supported when one notes that the
drinking of alcohol variables is insignificant (drinknow, drinkamt). The results also
show that gender and vehicular access do not raise the probability of walking
(whbrit, usevcl1), which is suggestive of the ubiquitous access to this activity.
Further, there is evidence too of regional effects, with Scotland and Wales having
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the largest size effects. This is clearly in keeping with their rural tourism activity.
Finally the results show that the participation in both other leisure and sports activ-
ities very strongly influences participation in walking (numsportw, numcultw).
Once again this is indicative of the interdependent nature of the demands.
Table 6 presents the results for the other selected sports activities. For brevity
only the significant coefficients and their percentage size effects of the variables on
the odds ratios of participation are reported. As can be seen from the tables, the
number of factors that affect participation rapidly reduce from the more aggregate
measure of sports participation. This is even including swimming, which is the
next most popular activity after walking.
Whilst there are some interesting differences in the results, a review of the
regression results reported in all of the tables reveal some discernible patterns. The
first is that explicit income effects are small in magnitude and disappear once anal-
ysis moves away from considering sports participation as a whole. With the excep-
tion of walking, moreover, the same can be said of substitution effects, identified
by changes in work hours. More importantly, even where they are present, the
effects are relatively small. In contrast the effects of education and particularly,
degree-level education, which is correlated with income, persist through to the
higher level participation activities such as walking, swimming and cycling. This
seems to suggest the importance of the threshold effects of income and access
rather than income effects per se. The implication is that the income-leisure trade-
off model only has a weak relevance in consideration of the allocation of leisure
time generally and does not easily transfer to specific activities. In contrast the
heterodox theories’ emphasis upon thresholds has some support. Collectively,
these results suggest some form of hierarchical structure to demand.
The results also reveal that household features are important in explaining
sports participation. The presence of children, for example, typically reduces
participation in any sport or walking, as indicative of broader sports demand, but
raises participation in recreational activities such as indoor swimming, cycling and
indoor football. As the former is more likely for females as opposed to cycling and
football, this is indicative of male and female family oriented activity. There are no
significant effects of the presence of children on participation in more fitness
oriented sports such as keep fit, weight training and jogging, and competitive team
sports. This is despite the female orientation of keep fit and netball. Of course, in
the latter case, participants are also likely to be younger. Moreover, the results
show that typically being male has a large effect on the probability of participation.
This is with the exception of swimming, keep fit and netball. Now it could be possi-
ble to explain some of these results, with reference to ‘new-household’ economics
 648 P. Downward

Table 6. Selected sports activities

Significant Variable Indoor Swimming Coefficient. % Effects

degree 0.2528 28.77

schoola 0.242 27.38
sex –1.0302 –64.31
cignow –0.3263 –27.84
usevcl1 0.454 57.46
n5to15 0.1706 18.61
nadfems –0.1556 –14.41
nadmales –0.2288 –20.45
numsportw 0.6712 95.66
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Significant Variable Keep fit Coefficient. % Effects

empman 0.6159 85.12

prof 0.5597 75.01
nonman 0.524 68.87
retired –0.3943 –32.58
sex –1.8372 –84.07
genhlth 0.1942 21.44
illness 0.2335 26.3
limitact –0.2271 –20.31
cignow –0.4108 –33.69
unpaidhr –0.2145 –19.3
voltime –0.1842 –16.82
voltime2 0.1172 12.43
numcultw 0.106 11.19
numsportw 0.6909 99.54

Significant Variable Weight training Coefficient. % Effects

sex 0.2439 27.62

genhlth 0.2767 31.87
age –0.018 –1.78
unpaidhr 0.0386 3.94
voltime –0.1517 –14.07
numsportw 0.6883 99.03

Significant Variable Outdoor Swimming Coefficient. % Effects

degree 0.6694 95.3

schoola 0.6653 94.5
schoolo 0.9253 152.25
sex –0.5446 –41.99
age 0.0212 2.14
voltime –0.1675 –15.42
numsportw 0.6023 82.63

Significant Variable Cycling Coefficient. % Effects

degree 0.2796 32.25

retired –0.4896 –38.71
sex 0.3978 48.85
 Exploring the Economic Choice to Participate in Sport 649

Table 6. (continued)
Significant Variable Cycling Coefficient. % Effects

cignow –0.2017 –18.27

usevcl1 –0.3004 –25.95
drinkamt –0.1084 –10.27
n5to15 0.1081 11.41
nadfems –0.1934 –17.58
numsportw 0.6601 93.51

Significant Variable Jogging Coefficient. % Effects

personal 0.8199 127.03

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working –0.473 –37.69

retired –2.0545 –87.18
north –0.5623 –43.01
mids –0.7842 –54.35
south –0.6406 –47.3
wales –0.5721 –43.57
scotland –0.7731 –53.84
sex 0.3277 38.78
genhlth 0.2182 24.38
cignow –0.6844 –49.56
age –0.029 –2.86
tothrs 0.016 1.62
numsportw 0.6214 86.15

Significant Variable Outdoor Football Coefficient. % Effects

sex 2.4575 1067.6

cigarreg –1.2176 –70.41
age –0.0552 –5.37
weekinc –0.161 –14.87
unpaidhr 0.0404 4.13
numsportw 0.4061 50.1

Significant Variable Golf Coefficient % effects

empman 0.4679 59.67

semiskill –0.5799 –44
schoola 0.4602 58.44
schoolo 0.488 62.9
married 0.2908 33.75
mids 0.4372 54.83
scotland 0.7805 118.25
sex 1.4702 335.02
genhlth 0.2746 31.6
limitact –0.4447 –35.9
usevcl1 0.7532 112.38
age 0.0102 1.03
drinkamt 0.2237 25.07
n0to4 –0.5328 –41.31
numsportw 0.4115 50.9
 650 P. Downward

Table 6. (continued)
Significant Variable Indoor Football Coefficient. % Effects

degree –0.3993 –32.92

sex 3.1754 2293.7
age –0.0935 –8.92
n5to15 0.2895 33.58
numsportw 0.4235 52.73

Significant Variable Netball Coefficient. % Effects

nonman –1.3106 –73.03

wales 1.727 462.35
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sex –3.8095 –97.78

age –0.1012 –9.63
nadfems 0.5715 77.1
voltime 0.7112 103.63
numsportw 0.4253 53

Significant Variable Rugby Coefficient. % Effects

north 2.116 729.75

wales 2.6473 1311.65
sex 2.4178 1022.14
usevcl1 –0.912 –59.83
age –0.0865 –8.28
voltime 0.2645 30.28
numsportw 0.3311 39.25

in the sense that sports activities seem to be readily clustered by gender. However,
one could equally argue here that ‘tastes’ could have a social mediation or
construction, particularly in the case of keep fit and netball, where issues of the
construction of a body image and the traditional emphasis in provision in school
apply respectively.
The results also reveal that perceptions of health are important in raising the
probability of participation. However, there are specific differences in emphasis
here. Whilst health appears to be important for participation in any sport
(anysport) and walking generally, this is not the case for the family oriented activ-
ities of swimming, cycling and football or competitive sports. In contrast it is
significant for activities such as keep fit, weight training and jogging. This is
suggestive of a specific niche or health and lifestyle motive that is not connected
with family recreation or competition. Along with the results for gender, therefore,
this would appear to be suggestive of identification or segmentation of participa-
tion with categories of activity. Finally, it should be noted that by far the strongest
and most ubiquitous effect on participation for any specific activity is participation
in other activities. This is clearly indicative of interdependent demands.

Conclusions and Policy Implications

It can be argued that these results, both in emphasis and broad predictions, collec-
tively reveal more support for the predictions of heterodox theories of sports
 Exploring the Economic Choice to Participate in Sport 651

demand than the neoclassical theories. The analysis also suggests that there is, in
general, some support for the Sport England drivers of change in participation.
Age, health and well- being, investment (if region variables proxy the effects of
access to facilities), education, access (if the variables measuring sex, access to a
motor vehicle and ethnicity proxy the effects of access generally), and volunteering
are supported in the analysis as determinants of participation, though the ubiquity
of the effects of health, regions, education and individuals’ volunteering can be
questioned. As there appears to be less strong support for the predictions of
neoclassical models of leisure choice this also casts some doubt upon the Sport
England emphasis upon time.
From a policy point of view therefore, a qualified targeting of the drivers for
change—as is the intention of Sport England—seems to be a sensible policy option
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that now has other empirical and theoretical support. The current research does
suggest, moreover, that raising general levels of participation in particular activities
can have positive ‘spillover’ effects for other activities because of interdependent
demands. In this respect specific policies are potentially reinforcing. This said, some
caveats are worth noting. The current research only crudely investigates ‘supply-
side’ features of sports provision, and does not identify the boundaries of the inter-
dependent demands. In this regard, the extent of the spillovers, and whether or not
particular policy initiatives distort or enhance the current supply-side structure,
which facilitates the interlinked demands, requires further investigation.13

Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this article were presented at a Workshop on Sports Economics,
University of Groningen in March 2005 and the International Association of Sports
Economics Annual Conference, University of Ottawa, June 2005. The author is
grateful for comments from participants at these events. He is also grateful for
comments by Alistair Dawson and Mick Green on earlier drafts. The research was
sponsored by Sport England. Data for this study was made available through the
ESRC UK Data Archive, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex.
CO4 3SQ. The results and interpretations of the data are solely the responsibility
of the author. He would like to dedicate this article, small tribute though it may be,
to the memory of his dear friend and colleague, Kevin Macken.

Notes
1. Broadly speaking, leisure is defined as activities that take place in ‘non-obligated’ time for a sport-
ing, recreation or tourism purpose. Likewise sports can be understood as distinct from recreation
by the degree of organisation and competition. Finally tourism can be distinguished from sport and
recreation in terms of the location in which activities take place. For a general textbook introduction
to these issues, see Gratton and Taylor (2000). From a public policy perspective, Sport England
(2004a, p. 6) defines sport in line with the 1993 Council of Europe, European Sports Charter as ‘all
forms of physical activity which, through casual participation, aim at expressing or improving
physical fitness and mental well being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in compe-
tition at all levels’.
2. Heterodox approaches are defined as those which seek to inform economic analysis by drawing
upon a wider set of methodological and theoretical principles than those of the neoclassical para-
digm (see Lee, 2002; Lawson, 2003, Journal of Economic Psychology Mini-Symposium, 2004).
3. Downward and Dawson (2000) suggest that this issue is potentially very relevant to the spectator
demand for professional team sports.
4. For further discussion of the relationships between private and public consumption see Fine (2002).
Moreover, these issues are a further manifestation of debates about the relevance of neoclassical
 652 P. Downward

economic modelling of complex social systems. See, for example, Lawson (1997, 2003), Downward
(2003) and Lewis (2004), which explore the philosophical, theoretical and empirical aspects of this
debate. Byrne (2003) addresses concern with the ‘general linear modelling’ approach in social
science.
5. This is identified by estimating the correlation of the errors between and within households. The
correlation coefficient is calculated as the ratio of the household-specific variance to the total vari-
ance in the model, that is, the sum of the household-specific and individual-level variances.
6. As identified in Greene (2000), with large samples there is little to choose between the Logit and
Probit alternatives empirically and there is no strong theoretical reason to prefer one to the other.
7. In the GHS, weighting takes place along a two-step approach. In the first step the data is compen-
sated for non-response for households in total, or items. In the second case the sample distribution
is reweighted to match the population in terms of age, sex and region. For more details, see Fox and
Richards (2004).
8. This is, of course, an issue raised by Farrell and Shields (2002) although their use of a random effects
probit model precludes weighting the data. See, for example, StataCorp (2003, p. 132).
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9. Data manipulation was undertaken on SPSS version 12, and all estimation on STATASE8.
10. As will be noted from Table 3 the sample sizes for each regression vary. This is because STATA
automatically checks the model that is estimated for adequate identification, that is cell sizes on
particular variables. It drops whichever variables and observations are necessary for estimation to
proceed. This problem is, of course, more pronounced with more specialised activities.
11. Ziliak (2005) and Ziliak and McCloskey (2004) have recently, and forcibly, stated the importance of
looking at the economic significance of coefficients, rather than merely their statistical significance.
Clearly this is important in the current context in seeking to identify the effects of variables for
policy purposes.
12. There is no evidence of multicollinearity here with income.
13. It is in this context thus, that one should be wary of radical changes to the nature of volunteer provi-
sion in UK sports (see Sport England, 2003).

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