76 | Chapter 1 3 et al., 2009; Schor, 1991; Van Houten et al., 2014). To test our theoretical expectations, we used detailed retrospective data on life courses and sport behaviours of 3540 Dutch citizens from the SportersMonitor 2010 (Van den Dool, 2010). These data enabled us to reconstruct individual sport careers in combination with the occurrence of major life events between the ages 18 and 35. We used event history techniques to accurately consider the timing and occurrence of life events and changes in sport participation, and to establish the extent that dropping out of a sport and ending a sport club membership may be considered a consequence of the aforementioned life events. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK A resource approach to study the effects of life events In the neo-Weberian tradition of understanding social action from a resource perspective (Bourdieu, 1978; Coleman, 1990; Sugden & Tomlinson, 2000; Weber, 1978), life chances – opportunities that individuals have of gaining access to scarce and valued outcomes, like practising a sport or membership of a sport club – are distributed according to the resources that individuals possess (Breen, 2005). The occurrence of major life events alters the resources a person can draw on. From this perspective, the influence of a life event on a person’s sport career may be understood by changes in the resource balance associated with that life event. Thus, stopping sport activities (but also starting, as described in the previous chapter, and more subtle changes in sport participation, for example in the number of sports practised and in sport frequency as described in the next chapter) could be interpreted as a result of changes in the resources available to a person when entering a new phase of life, and the associated shifts in needs, demands and wishes (Engel & Nagel, 2011; Pilgaard, 2013; Van Houten et al., 2014). The current study focuses on major life events that are key markers in young adulthood: beginning to work, striking out to live on one’s own, starting to cohabit or getting married and the
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