3 | 77 When do young adults stop practising a sport? birth of one’s first child (Arnett, 2007; Kilmartin, 2000; Zarrett & Eccles, 2006). We examine whether a young adult’s risk to stop practising a sport and end a sport club membership can be explained by changes in resources related to occurrence of the major life events investigated. Applying a resource approach, first, temporal resources are considered a prerequisite for practising sport. Thus, sufficient spare time has to be available (Schor, 1991), in time slots suited to the chosen activity (Gershuny, 2000). General considerations of time budget theory and temporal organisation theory (Southerton, 2006) suggest that less spare time increases time restrictions, which makes it harder to create free time slots, thus reducing opportunities for leisure activities (Kraaykamp et al., 2009). With regard to sport participation, this is reflected in the fact that a shortage of time is by far the most-cited reason for not practising sport (European Commission, 2014). In addition, time is not only scarce, but time devoted to one activity often must be traded off against time devoted to other activities. Since leisure activities like sport participation are relatively informal and optional, people experience pressure to give up such activities when more formal and obligatory tasks require attention, like paid work or childcare (Kraaykamp et al., 2009). Therefore, a reduction of temporal resources, caused by the onset and consequences of specific life events, may help explain why someone stops practising a sport or ends a sport club membership. Second, social resources affect sport participation. Taking part in sport is not merely an individual act; it is part and parcel of a great many social processes. Social contacts may encourage, but also discourage sport participation (Kraaykamp et al., 2013). At the same time, sport participation provides people with social resources and helps build social networks, social capital and social cohesion (Putnam, 1995). Social motivation theory helps us to understand why changes in social resources associated with the occurrence of major life events may influence people’s decisions to invest in a sportive pastime. It focuses on the “social payoffs” of activities, arguing that people prefer activities with high social benefits, especially when they experience time constraints (Hills et al., 2000). When a life event reduces the relevance of or opportunity for obtaining or maintaining the social resources that come with practising a sport, the social payoffs of that sport activity decrease. This might occur when, for example, a new job increases social resources by offering an expanded or intensified social network with high payoffs. Similarly, relocation to a new physical and/
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