Sports Participation and Beliefs about Male Dominance: A Cross-National Analysis of Sexist Gender Ideologies

Abstract

To fill the gap in empirical research on the relationship between sexist gender ideologies and sports participation, I examined how sports participation affects the endorsement of sexist gender ideologies by men and women and how country-level gender inequalities moderate this relationship. For the analysis, I used cross-national survey data from the World Values Survey and the European Values Study, including observations collected between 2005 and 2016 on 57,817 men and 61,080 women from 74 countries that vary in terms of gender equality, religiosity, modernization, and economic development. My findings show that when controlling for sociodemographic factors and between-country differences in sexist gender ideologies, men who are sports club members endorse sexist gender ideologies to a significantly greater degree than men who are not sports club members. This finding is independent of the prevalence of gender inequalities in a country. Furthermore, in very gender-inegalitarian countries, women who are active sports club members tend to hold less sexist gender ideologies than women who are not sports club members or are not active members, while they do not differ substantially in the endorsement of sexist gender ideologies in relatively egalitarian countries.