Gender inequality and demand for women’s sport: Unified Germany as a natural experiment

Meier Henk Erik, Konjer Mara, Leinwather Marcel

Zusammenfassung

Sport is a highly gendered social sphere. Accordingly, gender inequality within societies is correlated with women’s opportunities to participate in high - performance sport and national performance levels. Since sex - discriminatory socialisation appears to play a decisive role for sport consumption, the main question addressed here is whether socialisation by gender egalitarian policies serves to increase demand for women’s high performance sport. In order to test this idea TV ratin gs for the German women’s national football team are analysed because re - unification has created a unique natural experiment on socialisation effects of gender policies. Results provide no support for the idea that a stronger social acceptance for non - fami liar roles of women increases audience demand for women’s sport. Rather, it seems that gender divisions specific to sport matter, which has important implications for future research and policies aimed at popularising women’s sport.