Effects Of Title Ix And Sports Participation On Girls’ Physical Activity And Weight
...This research was partially supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and from the
Chicago Center for Excellence in Health Promotion Economics of the University of Chicago and University
of Illinois at Chicago. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect
the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
©2006 by Robert Kaestner and Xin Xu. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two
paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given
to the source.
Effects of Title IX and Sports Participation on Girls’ Physical Activity and Weight
Robert Kaestner and Xin Xu
NBER Working Paper No. 12113
March 2006, Revised June 2006
JEL No. I12, I18
ABSTRACT
In this study, we examined the association between girls’ participation in high school sports and the
physical activity, weight, body mass and body composition of adolescent females during the 1970s
when girls’ sports participation was dramatically increasing as a result of Title IX. We found that
increases in girls’ participation in high school sports, a proxy for expanded athletic opportunities for
adolescent females, were associated with an increase in physical activity and an improvement in
weight and body mass among girls. In contrast, adolescent boys experienced a decline in physical
activity and an increase in weight and body mass during the period when girls’ athletic opportunities
were expanding. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that Title IX and the increase in
athletic opportunities among adolescent females it engendered had a beneficial effect on the health
of adolescent girls.
Robert Kaestner
Department of Economics
Institute of Government and Public Affairs
University of Illinois at Chicago...
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