Gender segregation in sport participation among children and adolescents: The influence of parental education and physical activity

Participation in sports during childhood and adolescence is typicallysegregated by gender, with girls and boys frequently engaging in different types of sports.This segregation has broad negative consequences, particularly for children whoparticipate in sports that are not predominant within their gender. Qualitative studiesindicate that parents play a crucial role by either supporting or hindering their children'sengagement in gender-typical and gender-atypical sports; however, little is known aboutthe influence of specific parental attributes. We argue that parental physical activity (PA)exerts a gendered influence on children's participation in gender-(a)typical sports, andthat parents with high education promote children's engagement in gender-atypicalsports. We test these hypotheses using a large dataset of children and adolescents inGermany (N = 9,224). Overall, we find that parental PA exhibits the expected genderedassociation: boys are more likely to practise (only) male-dominated sports when onlytheir father does PA, and girls are more likely to practise (only) female-dominated sportswhen only their mother does PA. Regarding parental education, we find limited support:boys with highly educated parents are less likely to participate (exclusively) in gendertypical sports, whereas no such pattern is observed for girls. We discuss the broaderimplications and limitations of our findings.