Open Access
Building social capital through sport engagement: evidence for adults aged 50 years and older
(Cambridge, 2022) Sánchez-Santos, José Manuel; Rungo, Paolo; Lera López, Fernando; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
Involvement in sports is considered a powerful way to generate social capital. However, the role of sport engagement in the development of social relationships of older adults has not received much attention. Remarkably, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the quality and diversity of social relations built through active sport participation and spectatorship. This paper attempts to assess the relationship between sport engagement and various measures of network social capital, including the extension and quality of social networks and the heterogeneity of personal relationships. Also, it proposes new and more informative measurements of an individual's quantity and quality of social ties. By analysing data from a survey in Spain (N = 600) and applying logistic regressions, the results show that sport participation and attendance at sporting events are closely related to different dimensions of network social capital. Concerning people who are not actively engaged in sports, more extensive social networks characterise those who frequently attend sporting events. In contrast, active sport participation is associated with the extensity and quality measures of social connectedness, the level of satisfaction with friends and the opportunity to enjoy close relationships. Therefore, this paper provides new evidence on how sport engagement may result in tighter and extensive networks for older adults and serve as support for emphasising sports, physical activity and leisure as strategies for maintaining and boosting older people's social and psychological health.
Open Access
Is passive sport engagement positively associated with happiness?
(Wiley, 2020-10-06) Lera López, Fernando; Ollo López, Andrea; Sánchez-Santos, José Manuel; Economía; Ekonomia; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
Background: Previous empirical evidence has shown the positive relationship between happiness or subjective well-being (SWB) and sport participation. Nevertheless, passive sport participation has traditionally been ignored as a correlate with happiness. Methods: Based on a sample of 1,632 Spanish people, one ordered probit model and three extended ordered probit models with an ordinal endogenous covariate technique and robust standard errors were applied. Results: We find that different forms of passive sport participation, such as frequency of attending sporting events and a set of other forms of passive sports participation such aswatching sports on TV, listening to sports programmes, reading sports news, and talking to others about sports, are positively associated with happiness. Conclusions: The results indicate that passive sport participation generally appears to have a closer relationship with individual happiness than active sport participation and emphasise the role played by some forms of sport participation as a source of relational goods. This current research extends the field's understanding of sport participation and happiness, including passive participation, and the relevance of social interactions to account for this association. Finally, the relational aspect of different forms of sport participation offers new implications for the analysis of sport engagement and happiness.

Lera López, Fernando

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