Bouncing back or staying inactive? The social inequality in sport participation before, during and after the COVID-pandemic.

This contribution addresses the development of educational and financial inequality in sport participation in the Netherlands over the course of the COVID-pandemic. More specifically, we deal with the issue whether increased educational and financial inequality during the COVID-pandemic is temporary or becomes permanent after relaxation of the COVID-measures. We expected lower educated and people with financial problems to have less resources to bounce back to sport participation or to continue sport participation in sport over the course of the COVID-pandemic. To test our expectations, we performed multinominal logistic regression analyses on longitudinal data from the Dutch LISS-panel (n = 1.157). Our results confirmed that higher educated more often bounced back in their sport participation after COVID. Lower educated and people with financial problems were more likely to completely dropout. Our main conclusion is that educational and financial inequality in sport participation further increased after relaxation of the COVID-measures. This study enhances the understanding of the long-term impact of the COVID-pandemic on inequality in sport participation, and that might lead to more intensified sport promotion policies. Ongoing attention of policymakers for vulnerable groups is required to tackle social inequality in sport participation enlarged by the COVID-pandemic.

Cognitive Job Demands and Sports Participation among Young Workers: What Moderates the Relationship?

Cognitive job demands are theoretically and empirically associated with sports participation in various ways. Workers may be overwhelmed by stress and fatigue from their workload and therefore refrain from sports activities, but they can also feel the need to use sports as a way to recover and detach from work. The strategy to which workers adhere can depend on workers' resources that moderate the cognitive job demands and sports participation relationship, such as educational attainment, being a parent, or having worktime and work location control. To test our expectations, we used recent information on sports participation by young working adults from the Netherlands (N = 2032). Using multinomial logistic regression modelling, we found that workers in mentally demanding jobs were more likely to participate in sports more than three times a week. In particular, workers without children reported a higher likelihood of participating in sports more than three times a week when they experienced high cognitive job demands. Among the higher-educated, workers with high cognitive job demands were less likely to participate in sports one to three times a week. We reflect on the academic and policy-related implications of our findings.

Work-family trajectories across Europe: differences between social groups and welfare regimes.

Introduction: Work and family trajectories develop and interact over the life course in complex ways. Previous studies drew a fragmented picture of these trajectories and had limited scope. We provide the most comprehensive study of early-to-midlife work-family trajectories to date. Methods: Using retrospective data from waves 3 and 7 of the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we reconstructed work-family trajectories from age 15 to 49 among almost 80,000 individuals born between 1908 and 1967 across 28 countries. We applied multichannel sequence and cluster analysis to identify typical trajectories and multinomial logistic regression models to uncover their social composition. Results: The results revealed six common trajectories. The dominant and therefore standard trajectory represents continuous full-time employment with having a partner and children. Women, the lower educated and persons from conservative and liberal welfare regimes are underrepresented in this trajectory, whereas men, higher educated people and those from social-democratic, Eastern European and Baltic welfare regimes are overrepresented. The other trajectories denote a deviation from the standard one, integrating a non-standard form of work with standard family formation or vice versa. Mothers in a stable relationship generally work part-time or not at all. When mostly in full-time employment, women are more likely to be divorced. Lower educated persons are less likely to have work-family trajectories characterized by full-time work and a non-standard family, yet more likely to be non-employed for large parts of their life with standard family formation. Younger cohorts are underrepresented in non-employment trajectories, but overrepresented in part-time employment trajectories along with a partner and children as well as full-time employment trajectories with divorce. Individuals from Southern European and liberal regimes are more likely to be non-working and self-employed partnered parents and those from social-democratic regimes are more likely to be full-time employed divorced parents. We also found pronounced gender differences in how educational level, birth cohort and welfare regime are associated with work-family trajectories from early to midlife. Discussion: Our findings highlight the socially stratified nature of earlier-life work-family trajectories in Europe. Potential implications for inequalities in later life are discussed.

Sport club dropout under COVID-19 in the Netherlands: do characteristics of the neighbourhood matter?

Sport is considered important to mitigate social and health problems related to the COVID-19 pandemic and thus contributes to a resilient society. Because of poverty, caring responsibilities, social isolation and/or health issues, caused or reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic, (too) high thresholds may be experienced lowering sports club participation. In this article, we study dropout from sports club membership among the Dutch population in COVID times and relate it to neighbourhood characteristics to determine whether inequality in sports behaviour is increasing or decreasing. Specifically, we analyse changes in the association to sport clubs by utilizing membership register data of the National Sport Federation in the Netherlands (NOC*NSF). This longitudinal information on 3.6 million club members in 2019 within Dutch sport federations was used to analyse developments at the individual level between 2019 (pre-COVID) and 2021. Based on register information on the area of residence of sporters, neighbourhood characteristics were added to these individual membership data. Our results display that the socioeconomic status of a member's neighbourhood and the sport infrastructure in this neighbourhood impacts the likelihood of dropping out of a sport club of both youths and adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dropout among members is lower in higher socioeconomic status neighbourhoods and in neighbourhoods with abundant sport facilities. Remarkably, the impact of these living environment features seems higher for youth than for adults. To conclude, our study enhances a further understanding of inequalities in sport club membership dropout during COVID-19. First, it may inform policy makers to intensify sport promotion policies and to especially support sport clubs in lower status neighbourhoods. Second, given the relatively high dropout rates during the COVID-19 pandemic particular attention for retention seems necessary.

Does the COVID-pandemic affect the educational and financial inequality in weekly sport participation in the Netherlands?

This paper explores the impact of the COVID-pandemic on educational and financial inequality in level of weekly sport participation in the Netherlands. Restrictions due to the COVID-pandemic resulted in several barriers for people to continue sport participation. Lower educated people and individuals with financial problems are expected to have relatively few resources to adapt to the COVID restrictions, and therefore, more likely will decrease their level of weekly sport participation. Using high-quality data from the Dutch Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) panel, we are able to compare individual sport behaviour before and during the COVID-pandemic. Our findings suggest that the level of weekly sport participation of lower educated people and individuals with financial problems decreased more strongly during the COVID-pandemic. This implies that indeed the COVID-pandemic resulted in increasing educational and financial inequality in sport participation. With these results, our study contributes to a body of knowledge on the broader societal impact of COVID on issues of social exclusion. It may also inform policymakers to critically assess and intensify sport promotion policies directed at vulnerable groups in society.

Is Working from Home during COVID-19 Associated with Increased Sports Participation? Contexts of Sports, Sports Location and Socioeconomic Inequality.

Previous research has focused mainly on the association between working from home (WFH) and physical activity, establishing that physical activity diminished among people WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic. In our study, we investigated the association between WFH and specifically sports participation (competitive and non-competitive). We theorized that WFH would offer individuals additional opportunities to practice sports during the pandemic. Governmental restrictions at the time constrained opportunities to participate in organized sports and in sports with others. We, therefore, expected sports participation during the pandemic to be largely restricted to individual participation and participation at home or in the public space. By means of descriptive analyses and adjusted analyses of variance (n = 1506), we found positive associations between WFH and various aspects of sports participation. Lower-educated individuals, in particular, seem to be benefiting from WFH related to their sports participation in the public space, and economically deprived individuals also seem to be benefiting from WFH in regard to their sports participation at home. Our findings extend the literature on physical activity and sports participation among people who worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic while offering implications for policies on WFH, sports opportunities in public space and physical activity-friendly environments.

Household dysfunction and child development: Do financial resources matter?

Children who experience household dysfunction often report more developmental problems and lower educational attainment. A question, however, is whether these lower outcomes are caused by the household dysfunction itself, or by other (pre-existing) factors, such as growing up in poverty. Based on the extended family stress model, we derived hypotheses on the consequences of household dysfunction for child development. Furthermore, we considered the mediating and moderating role of parents' financial resources in the impact of household dysfunction on children's development. We studied these relationships while rigorously accounting for differential selection into experiencing household dysfunction using data from the British Millennium Cohort Study and employing descriptive and fixed-effects analyses. We found that children who experienced household dysfunction after age 5 already had more behavioural problems prior to these experiences. This underscores the importance of accounting for differential selection into experiencing household dysfunction. We also found that household dysfunction beginning after age 5 led to more behavioural problems but did not impact children's verbal ability. Parents' financial resources declined after household dysfunction, particularly among high-income households. However, we found only weak evidence of a mediating effect of financial resources, and larger declines in financial resources did not translate into larger consequences of household dysfunction among children from high-income households. Financial resources thus mainly seemed to play an important role for selection into experiencing household dysfunction.

Co-occurrence of adverse childhood experiences and its association with family characteristics. A latent class analysis with Dutch population data.

BACKGROUND: Although adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are relatively common among children, there is limited knowledge on the co-occurrence of such experiences. OBJECTIVE: The current study therefore investigates co-occurrence of childhood adversity in the Netherlands and whether specific clusters are more common among certain types of families. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Representative data from the Family Survey Dutch population 2018 (N = 3,128) are employed. METHOD: We estimate Latent Class Analysis (LCA) models to investigate co-occurrence of ACEs. As ACEs we examine maltreatment, household dysfunction, demographic family events, as well as financial and chronic health problems. Gradual measures for maltreatment and financial problems are studied to make it possible to differentiate with regard to the severity of experiences. RESULTS: Our results show that four ACE clusters may be identified: 'Low ACE', 'Moderate ACE: Household dysfunction', 'Moderate ACE: Maltreatment' and 'High ACE'. Regression analyses indicated that mother's age at first childbirth and the number of siblings were related to experiencing childhood adversity. We found limited evidence for ACEs to be related to a family's socioeconomic position. CONCLUSION: The found clusters of ACEs reflect severity of childhood adversity, but also the types of adversity a child experienced. For screening and prevention of childhood adversity as well as research on its consequences, it is relevant to acknowledge this co-occurrence of types and severity of adversity.

Current and Expected Economic Hardship and Satisfaction With Family Life in Europe.

This study investigated how people's satisfaction with their family life is influenced by economic circumstances. Expectations were formulated that people who experienced or expected economic hardship would be less satisfied with their family life. Additionally, it was hypothesized that current and expected economic hardship would amplify each other's consequences on satisfaction, and that current and expected economic hardship was more harmful for people with children and when the rise of unemployment in a country was larger. Multilevel analyses were conducted using a sample from the European Quality of Life Survey 2012 (N = 13,013 in 30 countries). Results indeed indicated that people who experienced or expected economic hardship were less satisfied with their family life. Expecting a financial decline was (slightly) more harmful for people in larger families. Generally, current and expected economic problems were not more harmful for parents or when a country's rise of unemployment was larger.

Ethnic health inequalities in Europe. The moderating and amplifying role of healthcare system characteristics.

Health inequalities between ethnic majority and ethnic minority members are prevalent in contemporary European societies. In this study we used theories on socioeconomic deprivation and intersectionality to derive expectations on how ethnic inequalities in health may be exacerbated or mitigated by national healthcare policies. To test our hypotheses we used data from six waves of the European Social Survey (2002-2012) on 172,491 individuals living in 24 countries. In line with previous research, our results showed that migrants report lower levels of health than natives. In general a country's healthcare expenditure appears to reduce socioeconomic differences in health, but at the same time induces health differences between recent migrants and natives. We also found that specific policies aimed at reducing socioeconomic inequalities in health appeared to work as intended, but as a side-effect amplified differences between natives and recent migrants in self-assessed health and well-being. Finally, our results indicated that policies specifically directed at the improvement of migrants' health, only affected well-being for migrants who have lived in the receiving country for more than 10 years.

Immigrants' health in Europe: a cross-classified multilevel approach to examine origin country, destination country, and community effects.

In this study, we examined origin, destination, and community effects on first- and second-generation immigrants' health in Europe. We used information from the European Social Surveys (2002­2008) on 19,210 immigrants from 123 countries of origin, living in 31 European countries. Cross-classified multilevel regression analyses reveal that political suppression in the origin country and living in countries with large numbers of immigrant peers have a detrimental influence on immigrants' health. Originating from predominantly Islamic countries and good average health among natives in the destination country appear to be beneficial. Additionally, the results point toward health selection mechanisms into migration.

Explaining health marginalisation of the lower educated: the role of cross-national variations in health expenditure and labour market conditions.

Several studies have shown ample cross-national variation in the risk that lower educated people run to be in poor health. However, explanations for this cross-national variation are still scarce. In this article we aim at filling this lacuna by investigating to what extent cross-national variation in the health gap between the lower and higher educated in Europe is explained by governmental health expenditure, namely, how much governments contribute to a country's total healthcare costs, and labour market conditions, that is, unemployment rates and modernisation of the labour market. We used information from the European Social Survey (ESS) 2002-2008 on more than 90,000 individuals in 32 European nations, and estimated hierarchical models with cross-level interactions to test our expectations. Our results show that the relative risk of being in poor health of lower educated individuals is smaller in countries where the government spends much on healthcare and with a highly modernised labour market.

Religious involvement, religious context, and self-assessed health in Europe.

In the present study, the authors examine the extent to which effects of individual religious involvement on self-assessed health are influenced by the religious context (i.e., religious involvement at the country level). The authors test their expectations using individual level data (N = 127,257) on 28 countries from the European Social Surveys (2002-2008). Results of multilevel analyses show that individual religious attendance is positively related to self-assessed health in Europe. Protestants appear to feel healthier than Catholics. Moreover, modeling cross-level interactions demonstrates that religious denominations at the national level are influential: The health advantage of Protestants as compared to Catholics is greater as the percentage of Protestants in a country is higher, yet smaller as countries have a higher percentage of Catholics. The association between religious attendance and self-assessed health does not depend on the national level of religious attendance.

Subjective Well-being in Rural India: The Curse of Conspicuous Consumption.

Using data on 697 individuals from 375 rural low income households in India, we test expectations on the effects of relative income and conspicuous consumption on subjective well-being. The results of the multi-level regression analyses show that individuals who spent more on conspicuous consumption report lower levels of subjective well-being. Surprisingly an individual's relative income position does not affect feelings of well-being. Motivated by positional concerns, people do not passively accept their relative rank but instead consume conspicuous goods to keep up with the Joneses. Conspicuous consumption always comes at the account of the consumption of basic needs. Our analyses point at a positional treadmill effect of the consumption of status goods.

Parental education, children's performance and the transition to higher secondary education: trends in primary and secondary effects over five Dutch school cohorts (1965-99).

According to Boudon, social background affects educational transitions as a result of differences in children's academic performance (primary effects) and differences in transition probabilities given children's level of academic performance (secondary effects). This study addresses historical changes in both primary and secondary effects on the educational transition from primary school to higher secondary education in The Netherlands. In addition, it considers changes over time in the relative importance of these effects. The study compares five cohorts of Dutch pupils, specifically those enrolling in secondary education in 1965, 1977, 1989, 1993 and 1999, and it employs counterfactual analyses. The main findings are that secondary effects have been stable and primary effects have fluctuated to some extent. As a result, the proportion of the total effect of social background accounted for by primary effects has increased somewhat, from 53 per cent to 58 per cent.

Social stratification and attitudes: a comparative analysis of the effects of class and education in Europe.

A classic topic in the sociology of inequality lies in the subjective consequences of people's stratification position. Many studies have shown that education and occupational class have significant effects on attitudes, but little is known about how the magnitude of these effects depends on the societal context. There has been debate in the scholarly literature, with some authors arguing that effects of class and education are less important when societies are more developed, whereas other authors argue that effects are either stable (for class) or increasing (for education). We use a meta-analytical design to address this debate. More specifically we examine the effects of class and education for a broad range of attitudes (21 scales) in 22 European countries using data from the 1999 wave of the European Values Study. We pool summary-measures of association (Eta-values) into a new dataset and analyse these Eta-values (N = 453) applying multilevel models with characteristics of countries and characteristics of attitudes as the independent variables. Our results show that there is no evidence that the effects of class on attitudes are lower when countries are more modern, but we do find larger effects of education in more modern countries.

Partner's and own education: does who you live with matter for self-assessed health, smoking and excessive alcohol consumption?

This study analyses the importance of partner status and partner's education, adjusted for own education, on self-assessed health, smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. The relationship between socio-economic factors and health-related outcomes is traditionally studied from an individual perspective. Recently, applying social-ecological models that include socio-economic factors on various social levels is becoming popular. We argue that partners are an important influence on individual health and health-related behaviour at the household level. Therefore, we include partners in the analysis of educational health inequalities. Using data of almost 40,000 individuals (with almost 15,000 Dutch cohabiting couples), aged 25-74 years, who participated in the Netherlands Health Interview Survey between 1989 and 1996, we test hypotheses on the importance of own and partner's education. We apply advanced logistic regression models that are especially suitable for studying the relative influence of partners' education. Controlled for own education, partner's education is significantly associated with self-assessed health and smoking, for men and women. Accounting for both partners' education the social gradient in self-assessed health and smoking is steeper than based on own or partner's education alone. The social gradient in health is underestimated by not considering partner's education, especially for women.

How important are parents and partners for smoking cessation in adulthood? An event history analysis.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study is to assess the effect of parental and partner's education and smoking behavior on an individual's chance of smoking cessation over the life course. METHODS: Self-reported life histories of smoking behavior, education, and relationships were recorded in face-to-face interviews with a random general-population sample of 850 respondents and their partners (if present). The data were collected in 2000. A discrete-time event history model is applied in the analyses of cessation over the life course. RESULTS: Parents' education and smoking behavior (during adolescence) and partners' education have no significant influence on cessation. Living with an ex-smoker or never-smoker increases the likelihood of quitting, compared to being single or living with a partner who smokes. Respondents whose partners were ex-smokers are almost five times more likely to quit smoking than single respondents. They are almost twice as likely to quit compared to those living with a never-smoker. CONCLUSIONS: The difference between having and not having a partner seems as important for cessation as the difference between having a partner who smokes, has never smoked, or has stopped smoking. An ex-smoking partner stimulates cessation more than a partner who has never smoked. Studies into cessation should take into account partners' smoking histories.

Trends in social inequality in self-reported health in The Netherlands; does infant mortality in year of birth as a cohort indicator matter?

In this article, we study trends in self-reported health (general health and chronic conditions) and health inequality in the Netherlands between 1974 and 1998 using an age-period-cohort framework. We answer two questions: (1) to what extent can trends in self-reported health be explained by the current macro-context (period effect) and by infant mortality in year of birth (cohort effect)? And (2) do the effects of period and cohort differ for educational groups? Health indicators are self-reported poor health and chronic conditions. The use of 26 Dutch cross-sectional surveys makes it possible to estimate largely unbiased effects of period and cohort simultaneously (controlled for age effects) and thus to adequately describe trends in social inequality in health. Our results give rise to four conclusions. First, for men poor health has been more or less stable, for women there has been an increase. The prevalence of chronic conditions has increased for both sexes. Second, adding cohort specific experiences to a model including age and period effects is only relevant for women's poor health. Decreasing infant mortality in year of birth leads to better health and consequently the period effect initially found for women appears to be slightly underestimated. Third, we found no trends in social inequalities in self-reported health due to period effects. Fourth, our analyses do show socially unequal trends in health as a result of cohort specific experiences. Contrary to our hypothesis, we found that decreased infant mortality in year of birth makes for a stronger impact of educational differences on self-reported poor health. Concerning chronic conditions no trends for educational groups were found.