By Abigail Funk
On the heels of celebrating Girls and Women in Sports Day last month and as the anniversary of the passage of Title IX sits ahead, a recent study is drawing attention to how much sports participation really can do for girls--both physically and mentally.
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We already know from past studies and research projects that sports participation has a connection to life benefits for both boys and girls. Generally, student-athletes perform better in school than their non-athlete peers, have self-confidence and self-respect, and succeed in their chosen careers post-graduation.
What we didn't know until now was whether those great things happen as a result of participating in organized sports or if kids who already have those traits are more likely to seek out sport participation in the first place. Do sports produce confident go-getters, or are confident go-getters just naturally attracted to athletics?
A new study conducted by Betsey Stevenson, Assistant Professor of Business and Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, is the first to attempt to answer that question.
"I looked to see what it means to add sports to girls' lives," she told The New York Times. "How does it change things for them?"
Instead of looking at national statistics connecting youth sports participation with eventual level of education attained or future income, Stevenson broke things down state-by-state, which allowed her to separate whether the positive effects seen in female athletes happened as a result of Title IX or just as a result of time passing. She also controlled for variables like school size and climate, and found a clear correlation between girls' involvement in sports and future life success.
Her findings say that Title IX's passage accounted for approximately 20 percent of the increase in women's education and about 40 percent of the rise in employment for women in their mid-20s to mid-30s. Stevenson also found that a 10 percentage-point increase in the number of high school girl athletes leads to a one percentage-point increase in female college attendance and a 1.5 percentage-point increase in female employment post-graduation.
"It's not just that the people who are going to do well in life play sports, but that sports help people do better in life," she told The New York Times. "While I only show this for girls, it's reasonable to believe it's true for boys as well."
Abigail Funk is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management.