The Effects of Female Sports Participation on Alcohol Behavior

Abstract

Most existing research on the effects of girls’ participation in high school sports focuses on short term outcomes without accounting for selection effects. In this research, I examine the effect of athletic participation in high school on longer term outcomes, using Title IX as a source of exogenous variation in athletic participation. I use the change in girls’ sports participation between cohorts within high schools surveyed by the High School and Beyond Survey to measure the effect of participation in high school sports on women's later alcohol behavior. I find that several years after high school, women in cohorts within high schools exposed to more athletics, drink substantially more alcohol than women within the same high school exposed to less athletics. Relative to the mean alcohol behavior of the sample, these differences are both statistically significant and sizable.