By Paul O'Sullivan

Perusing last Wednesday’s Irish Times, I was intrigued by an article entitled ‘IRFU address issue of number of youths dropping out of the sport’. The exit of young people from a given sport at certain life-stages has been an on-going issue for many sports, particularly team  sports. This issue was recently addressed in an ESRI paper by Pete Lunn, Elish Kelly and Nick Fitzpatrick entitled Keeping them in the Game (John Considine previously discussed aspects of this report here and here). Unfortunately, besides noting that the IRFU was engaging with the ESRI about its findings, the Irish Times article gave little indication as  to how the IRFU was going to address the problem and instead devoted much space to an overview of the findings of the ESRI report.

The ESRI report notes that the major participation drop-off points coincide with kids leaving primary school and at the ages of 18 and 21-22, which roughly coincide with leaving second and third-level education, respectively. It is the first drop-off point that I wish to address in this post.

The ESRI report gives various reasons as to why a drop-off in participation may occur at this life-stage. For example, increased time constraints as a result of entering secondary education, different friends, financial cost to parents, etc. The report notes that the drop-off is higher for team sports, both extra-curricular and extra-school, and is also larger for males. When socioeconomic factors are taken into account, the drop-off tends to be greater for lower socio-economic groups, except for extra-school team sports when the proportional drop-off is almost identical across groups.

With regard to the fall-off in team sports, one issue that may be a contributory factor is the movement to ‘competitive’ games that often occurs at age groups consistent with leaving primary school. Over the last number of years, the GAA, FAI and IRFU have modified their ‘non-competitive’ games for very young players in order to build up to ‘full’ games over a number of playing seasons. Emphasis, officially, is on enjoyment and skill-accumulation and all players must receive either equal or a minimum, and sometimes a maximum, amount of playing time. Once these sports move to ‘competitive’ level, however, many players that, up to then, were participating regularly, may now find themselves ‘on the bench’or under increasing pressure to perform to a level above their ability. Also, in many towns and villages, once games become full-sided, the local team may be in the position of having too many players for one team but not enough for two teams, or having to amalgamate age groups. When the objective of the club/manager is winning the next game, a number of players can be prevented from continuing to play regularly.

While it is not clear what the IRFU will do to address this problem, the GAA decided a number of years ago to extend its non-competitive ‘Go-Games’ format to matches up to and including under-12 level. Here, all players must play at least half of any game. The rationale was to reduce the drop-off in participation by allowing players more time to develop skills and so be more likely to continue playing when ‘competitive’ matches were introduced. As last year’s u12 cohort was the first that were subject to this new policy, it is much too early to determine the effect of this policy change.

While the GAA’s motive is laudable, it will be interesting to see if the new policy makes a difference. It is to be hoped that the new policy encourages more players to play for longer and improve their skills as a result of this change. On the other hand, while some kids may now continue playing beyond the current ‘drop-off’ point, the effect may be to simply push the problem back by two years. Kids that would previously have stopped playing soon after entering under-12 level may now postpone this decision until they reach under-14 level, as they continue to get playing time for a longer period. If the latter occurs, then the new policy may have a negative impact on ‘better’ players. For players without a major interest in a sport, and who do not engage in as much ‘effort’as other players, there is an incentive to continue playing as they are guaranteed playing time. As a consequence, more ‘advanced’ players may find themselves with less playing time, as a player with less interest in improving their talent must be allowed to
play. In this instance, the new policy may be counter-productive.

While there may be no ideal solution to this problem, it will be interesting to see how the IRFU proceeds.

By David Butler - This entry is part 2 of a weeklong series to mark the release of Homer Economicus:The Simpsons and Economics.

A Relative Age Effect (RAE) in sport occurs when there is a selection bias towards those born earlier in a registration period. Due to physical, psychological and social advantages older children in a cohort are more likely to be identified as 'talented', with the upshot being a skewed birth distribution of elite performers in youth sports. In the case of soccer, as is with many other sports,  a higher proportion of children born in the first quarter of the calendar year  represent their country at an elite level as for the duration of their time as a youth player they compete against relatively younger children, benefitting from early maturation. While it may not be nice to celebrate a birthday in the cold, being born in January, February or March has its benefits when it comes to organised sports!

RAE is of importance and deserves attention due the prevalence of the effect internationally both within and outside sport (it was originally studied in education systems) and also given that it has sustained in sport since its original application to hockey now over some twenty years ago. This bias toward those born earlier in the registration year has been documented in a variety of sports, not just hockey or soccer, and has led to suggestions that a RAE may even border on discrimination against those born later in the year.

As an economist it reminds me that organising a competition procedure can be tricky and that there can be nasty unseen biases in what appear efficient systems of organisation (even in this case when we try to by as fair as possible be grouping children in the same age category).

Satirising the name of the famous quarterback Bryan Bartlett Starr, the 9th seasons 'Bart Star' episode, written by Donick Cary, captures the dynamics of RAE fittingly and probably brings back memories for most of us that played youth sports. All the ingredients are there: brutally high levels of expectations and competitiveness from coaches, favourable treatment to certain star performers,  and of course, the expert parents on the side-lines.

The story  begins with Ned selecting the teams quarterback purely on the power of his arm and his general physique, something which the bully Nelson provides in abundance. Ned asks his try-outs to throw to the ball at him:

Flanders: A little higher, Wendell. (another throw) A lot higher, Martin. (another throw) Ralph, that's a basketball..(next throw hits Flanders hard) OK! Nelson's our quarterback. Nelson: Thanks, four-eyes.

Nelson proceeds to bulldoze the opposition, giving the team an unbeaten streak and at times being solely responsible for the teams success. Following a series of loutish heckling from the side-line however Homer manages to oust Flanders as coach.

Homer then proceeds to take the competitiveness of pee-wee football to a new level. He provides favourable treatment to one player (his son Bart!) but doesn’t rely on the previous successful tactic of leaving everything to Nelson, the most physical player on the field. The team however are not happy as their previously successful tactic of using Nelson's physicality has been unsuccessfully replaced. Despite the loss of their unbeaten streak Homer (hilariously) still takes great pleasure in “the easiest part of any coaches job – the cut”, dismissing what he deems the weaker performers and leaving the immature Ralph Wiggum on the side-line. Everyting returns to normal however by the end of the show as Nelson is restored to the quaterback position and the team win the championship.

As ever with my favourite TV show, the writers unpredictable and hyper ironic style allows them portray what often 'actually happens' through satire, albeit exaggerated to get a chuckle.

For those interested in the sociology associated with RAE and how it is linked to the theme's of this episode a good place to start is this Research Note Learning Life's Lessons in Tee Ball: The Reinforcement of Gender and Status in Kindergarten Sport.

by Declan Jordan

The most recent edition of the Economic and Social Review (Spring 2014) contains a very interesting paper by Bryan Coughlan, Edel Doherty, Ciaran O'Neill and Brian McGuire on the relationships between minority status and social welfare status and child participation in sporting, cultural and community activities. The data comes from the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) survey and it finds that children from minority ethnic households and from households in receipt of social welfare payments participate less in structured activities, such as sports and cultural activities. The results of their estimation is shown below in full. Here it may be interesting though to focus on the second column which shows the determinants of participation in sporting activities. The GUI states that a child participates in sport where they are a member of a sport or fitness club, such as a gym, a GAA club, a soccer club etc. This means the survey doesn't capture all sporting activities such as those through school but this is a good measure none the less of structured activity.

Some of the findings include that children of non-Catholics are less likely to participate in sport though more likely to participate in community activities. Children born outside Ireland and that have lived in Ireland for less than 6 years are less likely to play sports, as are children of unemployed parents and where English is not the primary language spoken in the household. Children of mothers with higher education levels are more likely to play sports relative to children whose mothers have completed primary education. Boys are more likely to play sports, and less likely to participate in cultural and community activities.

There are differences in the types of structured activities in which children participate whether they live in towns or villages or in Dublin or other cities. Relative to children living in the open countryside, those in towns, in County Dublin and in Dublin City are less likely to play sport (and more likely to participate in community activities). This is a little surprising for me as I would have expected the availability of sports clubs is greater in towns and in the capital. Perhaps the availability of alternatives is driving lower sports participation as the study finds higher participation in towns and in Dublin in community activities, relative to those living in the open countryside. In a previous post John Eakins, using the Household Budget Survey, showed that urban households spent more on sports participation than rural ones. There may be classification issues around urban and rural though this suggests that urban households spend more but participate less. Perhaps it shows up a weakness in the GUI question on sports participation in that it shows only whether a child was a member of a club but not how many clubs or how much activity was undertaken. In urban areas children may have greater choice and so may play more sports (with more cost).

Children in wealthier households are found to be more likely to participate in sports (and the other structured activities). This is similar to another post by John Eakins on spending by household social status. 

By John Considine

Chapter 4 of Keeping Them in the Game is devoted to examining what happens to sporting participation amongst Irish students as they make their way through second-level education.  In a previous post (here) I examined how Keeping Them in the Game presented the relationship between Leaving Certificate results and the type of sport that students participate in.  There is a most interesting relationship between the Leaving Certificate and sporting participation presented in the same chapter.

Figure 4.4 from Keeping Them in the Game is reproduced below.  It presents the relationship between social class and sports participation from first year to sixth year.  The data is presented for males and females.  The figure shows that for the first five years of education, sporting participation is higher amongst children from the professional/manager class than for children from the non-manual/skilled class.  This situation is dramatically reversed in Leaving Certificate year.  In sixth-year there is a huge fall-off in participation by children from the professional/managerial class.  The drop in male participation is from 75% to 60%.  The drop in female participation rates is from 70% to 50%.

Figure 4.4. presents the data on one of a range of issues examined in chapter 4.  In addition to examining the relationship between social class and sports participation, it addresses issues dealing with (i) sporting participation amongst early school leavers, (ii) transition year participation rates, (iii) possible 'relative age' effects, and (iv) the relationship between other school activities and sporting participation.  The chapter should be read by everyone involved in education and sport for this age group.

By John Considine

By David Butler

A recent  paper published in the Journal of Economic Psychology by Haifang Huang and Brad Humphreys asks an interesting question; does participating in physical activity improve reported happiness? The authors' results should be of interest to our Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport as we approach the budget as the research finds that individuals are more likely to participate in physical activity if living in an area that has greater access to fitness and sports establishments. Those individuals with this access report higher life satisfaction. The research concludes that this correlation between participation in physical activity and happiness, when a number of controls are made, relates to the effect of physical activity on health. 

Using data from the U.S the authors look at this relationship across genders too and conclude that “both men and women gain happiness from participating in physical activity, and men appear to benefit more”. 
 
While there may be cultural effects at work, meaning that this research is not wholly applicable to other countries, investment in sporting organisations appears to have a dual health benefit; one physical, in that it helps to combat obesity and one mental, in that access to sporting organisations makes us happier. 

The lesson is perhaps that spending on sporting institutions is not just about entertainment, it’s about public health, both physical and mental, in addition to viewing sporting institutions as a vehicle to grow social capital and create positve externalities for communities.