6–10 Jun 2022
Tübingen
Europe/Berlin timezone

What significance do ‘opportunities’ for practicing sports have for sports participation in Denmark?

Speakers

Bjarne Ibsen Karsten Elmose-Østerlund Jens Høyer-Kruse

Description

Presented by Jens Hoyer-Kruse:
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the significance of the municipally created framework for sports for adults' sports participation in Denmark. Danish sports policy is primarily about running sports facilities, supporting sports clubs, and making green areas attractive for physical activity - for which the municipalities are primarily responsible. Research shows that sports participation is due to a combination of 1) the opportunities and action alternatives to be active and 2) the individuals socioeconomic background and related motives and interests in practicing sports and being physically active. The data basis for the analysis is 163,133 citizens' answers to a questionnaire about their movement habits (40 per cent of those invited). Data at the individual level is linked with data at the municipal level for the number of sports facilities, the number of sports clubs, the financial support for sports etc. A multilevel logistic regression analysis – which includes both structural variables at the municipality level and variables of the individual level of the respondents age, gender, education, socio-economic position etc. – show that adults sports habits are primarily due to the citizens individual characteristics (gender, age, education and socio-economic and social / health situation, etc.), while the objective opportunities for practicing sports, eg access to sports facilities, are of little importance. Based on this, we discuss whether sports policy has too much focus on establishing sports facilities, and instead should focus on motivating the groups that are least active in sports.

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