Sporting Lives ESRI - April 2008

The construction of individual sporting histories allows us to compare the experiences of different generations, at least up until the age they were at the time of the survey in 2003. Thus, it is possible to assess whether the amount of sport people play is increasing or decreasing, and to see whether the pattern of playing sport as people get older is changing. Did the most recent generation of Irish children play more or less sport than their parents’ generation? If so, have they continued to do so as adults?
To answer these questions, Figure 2.3 plots the sport hill separately for three different age cohorts: 18-29, 30-49 and 50+ years. Of course, for the younger cohorts the hill has to be truncated, because we only have data up to the age people were in 2003. Nevertheless, the picture could not be clearer. There has been a very significant increase in participation in more recent generations. According to the data, consistently throughout childhood, getting on for twice as many of the current generation of young Irish adults were playing regular sport, compared with what can loosely be thought of as their parents’ generation and older. The middle, 30-49 years cohort, lies somewhere in between. Consider again the peak of the hill, at age 15 years. Among those who were aged 18-29 years in 2003, some 78 per cent were playing regular sport at age 15 years, compared with 66 per cent of those aged 30-49 years, and 44 per cent of those aged 50 years or over. This is a dramatic increase. Multivariate analysis in Appendix A confirms that this increase is significant even having controlled for the higher educational attainment and incomes enjoyed by more recent cohorts.

For more information on Sporting Trends in Ireland, please see report below:

Sporting Lives ESRI April 2008 (1.16mb pdf)...