Why Girls and Women in Sports: 10 Benefits

 

Substantial research reveals direct links between girls who participate in sports and stronger educational attainment, positive health outcomes, and improved adult employment results. Sports are crucial for girls to succeed! This information can help any coach, youth sports coordinator or leader, parent, guardian, caregiver, student, or community member realize how important sports are for girls and women. .
 

Wide-ranging, life-long benefits:

1. Girls and women who are most physically active in adolescence and young adulthood are 20% less likely to get breast cancer later in life. 

2. Girls who participate in regular exercise experience lower rates of depression.  

3. GIrls who participate in sports demonstrate higher self-esteem
 

Educational benefits:

4. Overall, girls who play sports have higher grades and score higher on standardized tests than non-athletes

5. Girls who participate in sports are significantly more likely to graduate compared to non-athletes. The correlation is particularly strong for Black and Latino girls.

6. At the collegiate level, young women who receive sports scholarships graduate at higher rates than young women students generally.
 

Employment and workforce dividends

7. Executive businesswomen report engagement with sports contributed to their success by providing leadership skills, discipline, and teamwork abilities. 

8. A study of 821 senior managers and executives found that 94% of women executives reportedly played organized sports after primary school. 

9. Girls who played high school sports show higher levels of adult labor force participation and are correlated with earning 7% higher wages than non-athlete peers.

10. As a result of Title IX (federal civil rights law requiring gender equity), and more girls playing sports, women are entering male-dominated professions at higher rates.