Sports and Child Development

Christina Felfe, Michael Lechner and Andreas Steinmayr

No 6105, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Despite the relevance of cognitive and non-cognitive skills for professional success, their formation is not yet fully understood. This study fills part of this gap by analyzing the effect of sports club participation, one of the most popular extra-curricular activities, on children's skill development. Our results indicate positive effects: both cognitive skills, measured by school performance, and overall non-cognitive skills improve by 0.13 standard deviations. The results are robust when using alternative datasets as well as alternative estimation and identification strategies. The effects can be partially explained by increased physical activities replacing passive leisure activities.

Keywords: physical activity; non-cognitive skills; skill formation; semi-parametric estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 J13 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2011-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-spo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Published - published in: PLoS One, 2016, 11(5), e0151729

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https://docs.iza.org/dp6105.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Sports and Child Development (2016)
Working Paper: Sports and Child Development (2011)
Working Paper: Sports and Child Development (2011)
Working Paper: Sport and Child Development (2011)
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