Starting a sport in the Netherlands

In this article the authors investigate the effects of parental, individual and partner characteristics on the starting of a sport. Employing event history models they analyze 72,491 person-years of 2276 individuals from the Family Survey Dutch Population 1998 and 2003. The results show that growing up in an family in which sport is common increases the likelihood of starting a sport. They further conclude that parents from the higher social classes more often stimulate their children to start participating in a high status sport. The results also indicate that a respondent’s educational attainment is positively related to enrollments in sports. The importance of a spouse is particularly demonstrated, as a sport-playing partner expresses a positive influence on a respondent’s sport participation. Moreover, in starting a sport it is more favorable not having a partner, even than having a non-sporting spouse.