Women's empowerment linked to Olympic success

Research has found that nations that have greater empowerment for women win more medals at the Summer Olympics. The study indicates that the effect of female rights is having an impact on both sexes.

According to a study by Grand Valley State University's researchers, published in the April 2014 edition of the Journal of Sports Economics, the data provides evidence for a previously untested hypothesis.

In order to determine whether women's empowerment leads to international athletic success, the authors, led by associate professor of economics at Grand Valley State Aaron Lowen, studied more than 130 nations that participate in the Summer Olympics.

Although, like other studies, it found there was a link between population size and wealth in terms of Olympic success, it was the first research to find that a Gender Inequality Index (GII) was a good predictor for the nation's achievement at the Games.

The GII encompasses a number of factors about females, including their political empowerment, participation in work, and reproductive health. It ranges from zero, meaning no inequality between the two genders, to 100 (extreme inequality).

The researchers found that a ten-point decrease in GII was associated with winning about one extra medal for men and 1.5 medals for women. The Summer Olympics was the focus of the study as it is the world' largest elite sports competition and also has almost even participation levels between male and female athletes.

Dr Lowen said that, although many studies have shown that female empowerment can be linked with economic development and better outcomes for children, there has been little investigation into whether it can influence sporting success.

"We read claim after claim that it does, so we decided it was worth finding out if it's true. Fortunately, the results turned out to be clear cut. No matter how we conducted the analyses or what measures of success we used, women's empowerment predicted Olympic success," he said.

The study did have some unexpected findings, including that greater gender equality could influence the success of men, even after factors such as population and wealth were controlled.

Adding that it is unclear why this pattern occurs, Dr Lowen said it is possible that nations that have greater equality between the sexes "afford both men and women greater opportunities for recreational and personal pursuits".