2 | 45 A new life stage, a new sport activity? ABSTRACT People’s desire to take part in sport and their opportunities for doing so change over the life course, possibly as result of experiencing major life events. The aim of this study was to determine the extent that starting paid employment, moving out to live on one’s own, starting to cohabit or getting married, birth of one’s first child, children leaving the parental home and retirement played a role in starting a sport and the organisational form of the sport chosen. We employed retrospective life course data on 2707 individuals from the Dutch SportersMonitor 2010, which traced sport careers and offers information regarding the age at which the major life events occurred. Using event history analysis, we examined the extent that the life events affected the odds of starting a sport in general and starting a competitive club sport in particular. The results suggest that major life events relate to changes sport activity. The odds of starting a sport increased when people started a paid job, moved out to live on their own, when their children left home and upon retirement. The odds of starting a sport diminished when their first child was born. Finally, becoming active in a competitive club sport was associated with moving out and retirement, but inhibited by cohabitation or marriage. Keywords: event history analysis, life events; life course; sport activity; sport participation; starting; competitive club sport. A previous Dutch version has been published in Mens en Maatschappij (Van Houten et al., 2014). Co-authors are R. Hermsen, Prof. Dr. G. Kraaykamp and Dr. A. Elling. A previous draft of this chapter has been presented in November 2013 at the “Dag van het Sportonderzoek” in Eindhoven (the Netherlands).
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