Incorporating Socio-Cultural Variables Into Calculations of Home Advantage in Women’s Sport: A New Framework

Abstract

Home advantage (HA) is heavily researched in sports science, but the vast majority of prior studies have analyzed men's sports. Very few have either analyzed women’s sports competitions or compared HA results between men’s and women’s sports. Our aim in this paper was to show the importance of socio-cultural variables in calculating HA for women's sports. The HA gender gap (HAGG) may be linked in part to such socio-cultural predictors as gender equality, cultural globalization that may modulate competitive behaviour in women's sports and changes in the observed HA rates. We seek to advance a new proposed framework for calculating HA in women's sport and/or comparing HA across women’s and men's sports.