Democracy predicts sport and recreation membership: Insights from 52 countries
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jegh.2015.12.003How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Health behaviour; Cross-country; Bernoulli models; Gender differences; Democracy; Athletics
- Abstract
Although evidence suggests sport and recreation are powerful contributors to worldwide public health, sizable gender differences persist. It is unknown whether country characteristics moderate gender differences across countries. The primary purpose of this study was to examine if countries’ levels of democracy and/or gender inequality moderate gender differences in sport and recreation membership across countries. The secondary purpose was to examine if democracy and/or gender inequality predicts overall rates of sport and recreation membership for both males and females. This study involved a nested cross-sectional design and employed the sixth wave (2013) of the world value survey (nSs = 71,901, ncountries = 52). Multiple hierarchal nonlinear Bernoulli models tested: (1) if countries’ levels of democracy moderate gender differences in sport and recreation membership; and (2) if democracy is associated with increased sport and recreation membership for both males and females. Countries’ level of democracy fully moderated gender differences in sport and recreation membership across countries. Moreover, democracy was positively associated with both male and female membership, even when controlling for individual and country-level covariates. Democratic political regimes may confer health benefits via increased levels of sport and recreation membership, especially for females. Future research should test mediating mechanisms.
- Copyright
- © 2016 Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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TY - JOUR AU - Shea M. Balish PY - 2016 DA - 2016/01/27 TI - Democracy predicts sport and recreation membership: Insights from 52 countries JO - Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health SP - 21 EP - 28 VL - 7 IS - 1 SN - 2210-6014 UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jegh.2015.12.003 DO - 10.1016/j.jegh.2015.12.003 ID - Balish2016 ER -