The Effects of Elite Sports on Later Job Success

Ralf Dewenter and Leonie Giessing

No 705, SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Abstract: This paper analyses the income effect of the participation in elite sports. To quantify the average difference in the monthly net income of former elite athletes and non-athletes we estimate sample average treatment effect scores (SATT) by using covariate nearest-neighbour matching (CVM). While our treatment group consists of formerly funded top-level athletes, the control group of non-athletes is drawn from the SOEP database. Matching takes place by socio-demographic variables as well as measures of personal qualities and attitudes. On average, former athletes receive higher incomes than similar non-athletes. The income premium for former team sports and male athletes is even higher. Comparing the income of former female athletes with male non-athletes, we find that the participation in elite sports closes the gender-wage gap. Our results are robust to variations in the specification and statistically as well economically significant.

Keywords: Funding of elite sports; nearest-neighbor matching; job success; gender-wage gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C49 J30 L83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 p.
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma and nep-spo
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Working Paper: The Effects of Elite Sports on Later Job Success (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp705

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