78 | Chapter 1 3 or social environment might reduce the relevance of previously enjoyed social resources. Engagement in social activities within the new environment may then become more important. In both cases the probability of trading off existing sport practices against new social activities is associated with the specific life event. The life events we investigate do not represent educational transitions, which would affect amounts of cultural resources (Bourdieu, 1986). Therefore, we disregard changes in cultural resources as an explanation related these life events. We do, however, include educational level in our analyses as a stable characteristic, as we know this generally affects sport participation. The four life events studied do not directly change people’s physical condition, with the exception of women who become pregnant and give birth. Earlier research, however, indicates that most women are physically able and recommended to continue sport and exercise during pregnancy and that they resume sport and exercise four to six weeks after childbirth (American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, 2003). This suggests that few decisions to stop practising a sport are made for physical reasons, and that these are limited to a rather small group of women suffering medical or obstetric complications. Therefore, we exclude physical reasons in our theoretical explanation of the effects of the life events examined. Lastly, we do not focus on economic properties, as financial restrictions have been found to play a minor role in decisions regarding whether or not to practise a sport (Tiessen-Raaphorst et al., 2010). Previous research found that sport participation is generally inelastic, and the willingness to pay is relatively high (Wicker, 2011). Therefore, after people start practising a sport and have made the necessary financial investments to do so, the risk of stopping sport participation seems little affected by changes in economic resources associated with the onset of life events. So, our theoretical rationale focusses on changes in temporal and social resources associated with the major life events under investigation. Expectations on the effects of life events on stopping participation in a sport in young adulthood Before young adults start working, most are either students, unemployed or homemakers. In the majority of cases, beginning to work becomes the main daily priority and takes up a lot of time (Szalai, 1973). Having a job imposes
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