Development and stability of sport participation in middle age

Abstract

Introduction: In order to explain sport participation in middle age, there is a dominance of social cogni-tive models which try to explainshort-term changes in behaviour (e.g. for several weeks or months). In contrast, Levinson’s (1986) developmental model represents aproductive theoretical framework to describe long-term changes in behaviour. At the centre of this theory is a concept of a life structurewhich is formed by the individual’s environment. The fundamental components of the life structure in middle age are the individual familyand work situation (Levinson, p. 6). In this theory, sport activity can be considered as a special form of leisure time which vies for timeresources with family, work, and other forms of lei-sure time activities. According to Levinson’s theory, changes in life structure causechanges in the constitution of leisure time. The central question of this paper is to investi-gate the hypothesis that life structure has aninfluence on participation in sport activity.Methods: To examine this hypothesis, longitudinal data were collected from 726 persons aged be-tween 33 and 56 years (M = 45.0; SD= 7.5). Three measurements were taken in five year intervals (1992, 1997, 2002). In addition to a comprehensive diagnosis of the sportactivity behaviour using a self questionnaire, socio-demographic variables, subjective health, in-tentions, family, and work environmentwere assessed.Results: The results of the study suggest that on the one hand, sport participation is a stable char-acteristic of human behaviour. Theanalysis of the finite Markov chains in discrete time shows that the probability for staying active is 91% for the transition from 1992 to 1997and 89% from 1997 to 2002. On the other hand, the sport participation is unstable because the chance for staying inactive is 59% for theperiod 1992-1997 and 42% for the period 1997-2002. The results of the logistic regression show that in the process of the adoption of sport activity, the variables gender, work load, and the number of people living in the household have a significant influence on sportparticipation. In the process of mainte-nance, work load, health and social status have a significant effect on sport participation.Discussion: The results of this study support Levinson’s (1986) theory which states that the compo-nents of life structure, such as work loadand the number of persons in the household, have an impact on sport participation behaviour.