The Uneven Playing Field

Kids may be over-scheduled these days, but it's not because they are spending all their spare time at the hockey rink, the soccer field, or the swimming pool. According to a study published last month by Statistics Canada, the number of kids participating in sports is on the decline. Just 56% of boys and 45% of girls ages 5 through 14 played sports in 2005 as compared to 66% of boys and 49% of girls the same age in 1992. That amounts to a 10% drop for boys and a 4% decrease for girls.

What's even more disturbing is the ugly truth you discover once you start asking which kids are being left out of the game. Statistics Canada researcher Warren Clark, the study's author, found that Canadian kids who miss out on organized and informal sports activities tend to fall into one or more of the following categories:

Children from low-income households (especially if they are girls). The sports participation rate for children from the lowest-income households (the bottom 20 percent) was 44% as compared to 68% for children from the highest-income households (the top 20 percent). The amount spent on sports-related expenses can be substantial, notes Clark, putting sports participation out of the reach of some children: "In 2005, 51% of two-parent households with children spent money on sports and athletic equipment. Those who made such expenditures spent an average of $579 during the year. In addition to these equipment expenses, families may also spend money on facility rentals, transportation to sports events, club memberships and competition entry fees in order to support their children’s participation in sports."

The sports participation gap between boys and girls increases as household income drops, suggesting that girls from lower income families are particularly disadvantaged when it comes to being involved in sports. This effect is particularly pronounced in single-parent families, according to Clark. "Under the strain of financial problems, lone parents may sacrifice the sports participation of their daughters, reasoning that sports have traditionally not been as important to young girls’ identities as they are to young boys."

Children living in urban areas—particularly if those areas are considered unsafe for outdoor play. Sports participation rates for children ages 5 to 14 range from a high of 58% in smaller cities and towns with populations between 10,000 and 50,000 to a low of 47% in Canada's three largest cities: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. The 2005 General Social Survey found that sports participation rates were lowest (42%) among children in high-density areas where low-income families were most likely to be living.

Children of recent immigrants. Children of recent immigrants are least likely to be actively participating in sports. Even in soccer, participant rates for the children of recent immigrants are 10% as compared to 23% for children whose parents were Canadian-born. Making a living in a new country can be a challenge for many first-generation Canadians. As participation in sports often requires economic resources, children of recent immigrants may face financial barriers to sports participation. It's an unfortunate missed opportunity because internationally popular sports such as soccer may provide the children of recent immigrants with familiar ground on which to integrate into Canadian society.

All this data begs the question: what will it take to even the playing field for Canada's most vulnerable kids?

If you think the non-refundable Children's Fitness Tax Credit (introduced in 2007) was the answer, think again. The families most likely to benefit from the tax credit are those who need the incentive least: the children of high-income earners (a group of children who are already 1.5 times as likely to be participating in sports programs as the children of low-income Canadians). A non-refundable tax credit is only of benefit to a family which has tax owing. A non-refundable tax credit is of no use to a family living at or below the poverty line. Besides, you have to spend $500 (the maximum per child) to get $45 back -- a less-than-appealing proposition for a family that's having difficulty making ends meet.

So what's the solution? I wish I knew. It's clear that it will have to include affordable (or free) community-based sports programs. I'm sure a lot of people are working on these issues right now. It would be great if some of the people who care passionately about this issue could identify themselves, via this blog, to the rest of us so we will know who you are and where we can find you – so we can offer you support and ask what we can do to help raise awareness of this issue.

Bottom line? It's not okay that family income is becoming a key determinant of who gets to play the game and who gets to sit on the bench. How sportsmanlike is that, after all?

Note: In my next blog post, I'll be writing more about how playing sports (both organized sports and informal sports) during the early years makes a huge difference to the healthy development of kids – and what it means to us as a society when certain kids are denied that opportunity.

Comments

[Annie]

Some kids enjoy participating in organized sports and it is certainly preferable to sitting in front of the TV. However, I would not sound the alarm bells just because there is a decrease in participation in organized sports or because certain groups don't participate evenly in them. I think that unstructured outdoor play is much more valuable to our kids. Also, my experience in other countries and also among our immigrant communities is that they are much more likely to gravitate towards an informal game of pick-up soccer in the park, rather than organized team sports. Different people are active in different ways and I don't think that the statistics you presented are useful on their own. We need to take all types of activity into account.

[Ann Douglas]

Thanks for your comment, Annie.

I agree that unstructured play is really important. This study also makes that point. Stats Canada tracked both organized sports and informal sports activity (what you and I might call unstructured play).

One of the points the study is making is that a lot of kids don't have access to a safe place in their neighborhood to kick a soccer ball around.

Another important point the researchers made refers to access to organized sports and what that means to children's long-term social and academic success.

I was surprised to find out what an important role organized sports play in allowing kids to develop particular school-readiness skills. I'm going to be picking up on this point in my next blog post, but, briefly, participating in organized sports or taking sports-related lessons (e.g., swimming lessons) allows kids to acquire important school readiness skills in such areas as spoken language, stronger communication skills, number knowledge, copying, and symbol use. Unstructured play (informal sports activity), on the other hand, prepares kids for school by giving them a chance to develop their cooperative play skills.

Kids thrive when they have access to both types of play: organized sports and informal sports activity (unstructured outdoor play).

So when kids miss out on the chance to participate in organized sports, it's that much more difficult for them to develop some of the skills that ease the transition to school.

[Kia]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't there used to be (20-30 years ago) a lot more "free" sporting lessons offered through public schools? I seem to remember that when I was a child, going through the public school system, there were a lot more house-league sports available. Soccer, volleyball, floor hockey, etc. Is this offered as much nowadays? Maybe I'm just living under a rock, but to me, it seems like it should be so much easier (yeah, right $$$$$) to offer something like this through the school system.

[Ann Douglas]

I remember those days-gone-by, too, Kia.

I remember one summer when I was in about Grade 2 (this would have been around 1970), there was this free summer kids program at the public school on my street. I think it was a half-day program. You could drop in anytime. There were sports activities, crafts, etc.

I think that what's offered today varies a lot by school: whether there are staff members willing to invest the time in running an extra-curricular sports program; whether there are students able to participate (busing can complicate matters), and what else is being offered at the school.

Just as an aside -- People for Education is challenging school boards to rethink the ways we've traditionally thought of schools: to start thinking of them as hubs for community activity -- places that could be used for complementary activities that would benefit the community. Providing free sports activities for preschoolers would be an excellent way of taking advantage of excess space in schools due to declining school enrollments. (We've lost 90,000 students in Ontario schools during the past six years.) Figuring out a way to put such a program in place would, as People for Education points out, require cooperation from multiple provincial ministries (who control different pockets of money and who have responsibilities for different aspects of children's lives) as well as the federal government (which is responsible for health) and the municipal government (which is responsible for community planning issues).

It sounds like a recipe for red tape and bureaucratic paralysis, but there's too much at stake for parents to allow that to happen. We're talking about potential school closings on the one hand (see peopleforeducation.com for more about that) and the loss of valuable facilities that might otherwise become valuable community resources able to meet the needs of families and children in new and different ways.

[Deborah David]

This information is very interesting; especially as it relates to the children of recent immigrants. I wonder if the statistics would have been different twenty years ago when there was more of a feeling of economic stability in the world. If the study only looked at formal sports participation, then the results may be somewhat skewed. I remember being very physically active as a child (moved to the US when I was three years-old), but I never joined any official teams.

[Ann Douglas]

Hi Deborah -

Thanks for joining the conversation.

Just to respond to one of your comments: The study looked at both formal and informal sports activity and analyzed the data in all kinds of ways to try to get at which kids were most likely and most unlikely to be participating in sports.

BTW -- I just checked out your blog. It's fascinating.