The effect of Lithuanian household income on the choice of non-formal education of children through sports and related costs

Abstract

Lithuanian government attempts to create equal opportunities for children who are brought up in different economic, social, and cultural conditions. The income of the majority of Lithuanian citizens still falls behind the European average. This study aims to examine the effect of household income on the choice of non-formal education activity of children and the costs of participation in sports. A questionnaire survey was public used on a website. Vilnius households (Ʃ = 136) were those whose 3-7 years old children were enrolled in non-formal sports activities. The survey aimed to find out the effect of household income on the selection of children’s non-formal sports education. Results showed that the importance level of a sports club, the sport, or activity selection criteria are more expressed in families with lower income. Survey revealed the annual (nine months) ten categories of expenses incurred by parents. The average parental costs for children’s sports activities per nine months amount to EUR 550, consisting of the membership fees and other costs. Parents tend to finance children’s non-formal education through sport irrespective of household income, i.e., parental predispositions towards their children’s participation in sports are much stronger compared to incurred expenses on sports activities.

The effectiveness of the sports management system in Europe: High achievements, public funding and a healthy lifestyle

“…Sports management is a type of specific management (Nguyen, et al, 2021), which regulates the development vectors of physical culture and sports oriented organizations (Kollmann et al, 2022). Sports management considers physical culture and sport (Nufer, 2019;Čingienė 2020) not only as human motor activity, confirmed in the physical culture theory, but also as a set of special means (Caratas et al, 2021) and methods (Gavurova et al, 2021), aimed at the development of people's physical activity (Sylwestrzak et al, 2022). In addition, physical culture and sports are objects of social management (Winiarski et al, 2021;Seguer 2022;Vasilyeva et al, 2021), which function thanks to various physical culture and sports organizations, sports schools, and clubs, sports facilities and playgrounds, sports and health centers , sports teams in all possible sports, sports federations, International sports federations.…”