Poster Presentation

Paper ID : 1025-SSRC (R1)

¹Department of Movement Behavior and Sports Management, Faculty of Sports Sciences, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

²Associate Professor of Department of Movement Behavior and Sports Management , Faculty of Sports Sciences, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

³Assistant Professor of Department of Physical Education, Farhangian University, P.O. Box 14665-889,Tehran, Iran

There is a two-sided approach about the effect of unemployment on sport participation. On the one hand, some researchers believe that unemployment led to increased sport participation and unemployment gives athletes more time for sport participation. On the other hand, some studies showed that unemployment decreases sports participation because unemployment led to reduced income of athletes. So, the purpose of this study was the effect of unemployment rate on participation in bodybuilding. This research used a data panel from 2007-2021 for Iran provinces. Therefore, 15*28=420 observation used in this study. Data collected from Iran Statistical Center (ISC). The Sport Participation (SP) variable is estimated using the number of athletes in bodybuilding that regularly participate in the clubs and have a sports insurance card. Also, Ratio of unemployed to employed people was used for unemployment rate variable (UR). In order to estimate the research equation, this research uses Ordinary least squares method (OLS) with Eviews software. The results showed that the unemployment rate has a positive effect on participation in bodybuilding. It means that an increase in the unemployment rate leads to higher participation. Also, the average sports participation in bodybuilding is 6543.58, which fluctuates between 193 and 81785 athletes in 2007-2021. The trend of participants fluctuates and Tehran has the highest contributors in the research years. Politicians must pay attention to provinces that have low and high participation in bodybuilding and identify unemployment of provinces. So, they can apply planning and strategies for reducing unemployment and increasing participation in bodybuilding. In this situation, it can make a balance between low income and high time that unemployment gives athletes of bodybuilding.

Sports participation; Bodybuilding; Unemployment Rate