Is Working from Home during COVID-19 Associated with Increased Sports Participation? Contexts of Sports, Sports Location and Socioeconomic Inequality

Abstract

Previous research has focused mainly on the association between working from home (WFH) and physical activity, establishing that physical activity diminished among people WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic. In our study, we investigated the association between WFH and specifically sports participation (competitive and non-competitive). We theorized that WFH would offer individuals additional opportunities to practice sports during the pandemic. Governmental restrictions at the time constrained opportunities to participate in organized sports and in sports with others. We, therefore, expected sports participation during the pandemic to be largely restricted to individual participation and participation at home or in the public space. By means of descriptive analyses and adjusted analyses of variance (n = 1506), we found positive associations between WFH and various aspects of sports participation. Lower-educated individuals, in particular, seem to be benefiting from WFH related to their sports participation in the public space, and economically deprived individuals also seem to be benefiting from WFH in regard to their sports participation at home. Our findings extend the literature on physical activity and sports participation among people who worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic while offering implications for policies on WFH, sports opportunities in public space and physical activity-friendly environments.

Cognitive Job Demands and Sports Participation among Young Workers: What Moderates the Relationship?

“…First, a novel perspective might be that young workers nowadays react differently to mechanisms and concepts that have been important for a long time. The rise of working from home [65], burnout, and lower well-being [78] as well as the centrality of leisure instead of work among these young adults [73] calls for innovative research on the consequences of working conditions among this group. These young workers will constitute the labour force for the next decennia, and thus suitable knowledge regarding their behaviour and preferences is vital to create and maintain a healthy workforce.…”

“…In other words, having worktime and work location control offers more flexible options to plan leisure time, as it relaxes temporal and areal restrictions, which makes participation in sports easier and facilitates compensation for workload through sports [63][64][65]. This suggests that flexibility in worktime and work location mitigates the consequences of cognitive job demand overload, which may give workers more opportunities and energy to participate in sports [65,66]. For this reason, we expect that (H3): Hypothesis 3.…”

“…Workers who can influence when to start and finish work, have flexibility in scheduling tasks and breaks, and have the opportunity to work from home are better equipped to combine work with life [49,63,64]. In other words, having worktime and work location control offers more flexible options to plan leisure time, as it relaxes temporal and areal restrictions, which makes participation in sports easier and facilitates compensation for workload through sports [63][64][65]. This suggests that flexibility in worktime and work location mitigates the consequences of cognitive job demand overload, which may give workers more opportunities and energy to participate in sports [65,66].…”

Trade Union Members’ Experiences and Attitudes towards Working from Home during the Pandemic

“…However, persons WFH in the Netherlands during the pandemic reported good health and fewer musculoskeletal disorders than before [48]. Besides, Grubben et al found WFH to be positively associated with sports participation [58]. On their part, Hallman et al revealed that workers in Sweden slept more when they worked from home, potentially leading to health benefits [59].…”