Comment on “Level the Playing Field to Bolster the Boardroom: Sports as a Springboard for Women's Labor Force Advancement in Asia”

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12126
• Date: 01 January 2016
• Published date: 01 January 2016
• Author: Yukiko Abe

Comment on “Level the Playing Field to

Bolster the Boardroom: Sports as a

Springboard for Women’s Labor Force

Advancement in Asia”

Yukiko ABE†

Hokkaido University

JEL codes: J00, J16, I24, M14

Kotschwar and Stahler (2016) take up gender aspects of sports participation and labor

market outcomes. The paper first provides facts about various dimensions of female par-

ticipation in society (i.e. labor market participation, representation on corporate boards,

Olympic participation, and political leadership) across countries. Then, Kotschwar and

Stahler argue that encouraging girls’ participation in sports would promote female par-

ticipation in the labor market and leadership positions, and they suggest multiple practi-

cal ways of encouraging sports participation among girls.

The possible link between sports and labor market outcomes is an interesting one. At

the same time, many factors influence the labor market participation of women, and

sports may not be a major one. In Japan at least, the interruption in labor market partici-

pation after childbirth has been the most significant obstacle for women’s career devel-

opment. Even though girls do well in academics and sports, their career progress may

not improve to a discernible degree if they need to interrupt it when they bear children.

In fact, as the gender gap indices produced by the World Economic Forum (2014)

suggest, the gender disparity in educational attainment in Japan is less than the disparity

in the labor market. Women have approached parity in educational attainment, but not

in the labor market. Given such an institutional environment in Japan,how much differ-

ence sport participation can make in women’s career development is an open question,

in my opinion. A similar situation may be present in other Asian countries.

Another conceptual issue that came to my mind was this:“What is the market failure

in this situation?” Here, the market failure means that girls participate in sports at a less-

than-optimal level (By the way, I am not sure whether Kotschwar and Stahler assume

boys participate adequately, toolittle, or even too much). A related, and perhaps difficult,

question is, “How big is the efficiency cost of the market failure?”

Along with Kotschwar and Stahler’s argument, I can think of likely causes for the

market failure, such as (i) liquidity constraints, (ii) gender discrimination, and (iii) social

norms. Sports activities require resources, both in terms of direct costs and opportunity

†Correspondence: Yukiko Abe, Graduate School of Economics and Business Administration,

Hokkaido University, Kita 9 Nishi 7, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060-0809 Japan. Email: abey@

econ.hokudai.ac.jp

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doi: 10.1111/aepr.12126 Asian Economic Policy Review (2016) 11, 137–138

© 2016 Japan Center for Economic Research 137