How Diverse Are Women's College Sports?

Recently, the NCAA published the most recent school-year's participation data, which includes breakdowns by sex, race, sport, division, and conference. Because this data set goes back to the 1999-2000 school year, I decided to use it to look for trends in racial diversity in women's college athletics over the last decade. Several hours and few Excel spreadsheets later, I have the some questions and answers to report.

My first question was whether athletic opportunities for women in general increased during the time period in question.

• The answer, not surprisingly, is yes. Athletic opportunities for women at NCAA member institutions has increased by 31% -- from 147,683 in 1999-2000 to 193,207 in 2010-2011.
  
• Half of that overall increase is due to gains in three women's sports: indoor track, outdoor track, and soccer.
  
• Participation rates within most other women's sports increased as well. In addition to two emerging sports that were discontinued during the time frame in question -- archery and badminton -- only fencing, rifle, skiing, and synchronized swimming showed declining participation rates. All other sports gained some.
  

Next, I wondered whether opportunities for female athletes of color have increased during this time period as well.

• Again, the answer is yes. Opportunities for women of all minority races (Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latina) increased by percentages higher than the mean 31%. For instance, opportunities for Black female athletes increased from 14,001 to 21,615, or 54%. In comparison, opportunities for white female athletes increased from 117,244 to 144,598, or 23%.
• However, these gains for female athletes of color were not enough to significantly change the overall racial distribution of female athletic opportunities. In 1999-2000, 79% of female athletic opportunities went to white athletes, compared to 75% last year -- a change of only four percentage points. Meanwhile, the percentage of female athletic opportunities that went to Black women rose from 9 to 11 percent.

I then wondered whether the present distribution of female athletic opportunities by race is proportionate to racial demographics of the undergraduate population.

• The best data I could find suggests that about 8% of female college undergraduates are black (13.5% of college students are black; 59.3% of black college students are female).
  
• A total of 14,001 athletic opportunities received by Black women constitutes 11% of women's athletic opportunities, so Black women are not underrepresented in the distribution of women's athletic opportunities.
  
• Yet when you take into account the general underrepresentation of women in college athletics, the percentage of athletic opportunities for Black women is disproportionately low, since a total of 14,001 athletic opportunities received by black women constitutes only 3% of all athletic opportunities.
  

Last, I wondered if racial diversity within particular sports has changed over time.

• In 1999-2000, there were 14,001 athletic opportunities for black female athletes. 25% of these opportunities were in outdoor track, 21% in indoor track, and 23% in basketball. This not surprising, as reporters, scholars, and advocates have noted for years about this manner of racial segregation within athletics.
  
• Unfortunately, though participation rates are rising in almost every sport, including two new emerging sports that have been added in the last ten years -- bowling and rugby -- opportunities for black female athletes are still concentrated in track and basketball in percentages nearly identical to those ten years ago.
  
• Other minority races, though receiving fewer athletic opportunities than black women, were more evenly distributed throughout various sports. Latina/Hispanic women have 7747 athletic opportunities -- 17% in soccer, 14% in softball, 10% in track. Asian women have 3999 athletic opportunities -- 12% in soccer, 11% in tennis, and 10% in track. Finally, just 716 Native American/Alaska Native women have athletic opportunities at NCAA institutions, 18% of these are in softball, followed by 13 and 12% in outdoor and indoor track, respectively.

In sum, this year's NCAA participation data suggest there's been no drastic change in the diversity of women's college sports over the last ten years. Thanks to Title IX, opportunities for women to participate in college athletics continue to increase and close the gap between participation rates for women and men. Yet even though these increases produce opportunities for Black women that are proportion to their demographic rates on campus, their opportunities still remain clustered in track and basketball. With only two sports accounting for most athletic opportunities for Black women, questions must be raised about the accessibility of other sports to athletes of color.

Women's Sports Foundation Reports on Participation Trends in High School Athletics

The Women's Sports Foundation has published a new report called “Progress Without Equity: The Provision of High School Athletic Opportunity in the United States, by Gender 1993-94 through 2005-06.” Using data from the Civil Rights Data Collection and the National Center for Education Statistics, the report authors, Professor Don Sabo from D'Youville College and Phil Veliz from SUNY Buffalo, examine gender differences in athletic opportunity in a sample of 24,370 public high schools across three school years, 1993-94, 1999-2000, and 2005-06. The authors measured the number of athletic participation opportunities, the number of teams, and the number of sports in the sample school districts during these years, and then controlled for a variety of factors about those schools including geographic region, level of resources, and whether urban, suburban or rural. As described in the report's abstract, its key findings include:

• While high schools gradually increased their allocations of athletic participation opportunities between 1993-94 and 2005-06, progress toward closing the gender gap slowed after 2000.

• Boys received a larger proportion of athletic participation opportunities than girls did for each school year in all communities (i.e., urban, suburban, town, and rural). The lowest percentages of athletic participation opportunities occurred in urban schools, whereas the highest percentages were issued in rural schools.

• Schools with greater economic resources provided more athletic participation opportunities for their students—both girls and boys—than their less fiscally sound counterparts.

• Girls were provided proportionately fewer athletic participation opportunities than boys during each school year and in all geographic regions (i.e., Northeast, Midwest, South and West.

To me, this report provides an answer to those who would curtail Title IX's enforcement at the high school level. By proving that girls' opportunities are still lagging and progress towards equality waning, this report should encourage regulators and lawmakers to strengthen Title IX's application to high school athletics such as by taking seriously those seeking OCR enforcement against continued disparities, and by passing legislation that would standardize participation data and make it available and easier to find for those seeking to file a complaint or a lawsuit.

If only all equity data were this easy to find

T9B "Tip of the Hat" to web-savvy Kentucky citizen, Dick Richards. Leveraging the state's open records law, Richards got copies of high schools reports to the Kentucky High School Athletic Association, and then reported them online in a very searchable, user-friendly website. Thanks to these efforts, anyone in Kentucky can check on participation and spending data for girls' and boys' sports at any high school. He also developed a grading rubric that takes into account participation rates, added participation, spending per athlete, coaches salaries, and other factors. You can look up any school or district to find out how it rates.

Richards' website also provides answers to bigger picture questions like what is the gender breakdown in athletic participation statewide? (Answer: 56.3% boys, 43.7% girls) And funding? 41% on girls' sports, 59% on boys sports. Also, that the participation and spending gap is larger in the the state's largest school districts.

This tool could be invaluable to Kentucky citizens seeking empirical support to discrimination claims. It could also provide a model for activists in other states!

Study Uses Title IX to Show Effect of Athletic Participation on Educational Attainment

Via Gregg Easterbrook's recent column at ESPN.com, which criticizes college athletics for failing to seriously incorporate an academic mission, I learned of this forthcoming article by Wharton School professor Betsey Stevenson (draft here), which studies the effect of athletic participation on educational and professional attainment. Stevenson uses the early years of Title IX to simulate a laboratory designed to test for the causal relationship between athletics and academics and avoid the problem of selection effects that is typical of such studies. (Selection effects means that the merely correlating athletic participation and educational attainment doesn't tell you whether one influences the other, or whether it just happens to be that the same kids who already do well in school are those who have the self-confidence, parental support, lifestyle, or whatever, that makes them select into sports.)

Between 1972 and 1978, the rates of girls' participation in high school athletics rose from 1-in-27 generally, to 1-in-4. She then measured other outcomes, such as college attendance and employment, for women who would have been in high school during that time. By comparing those outcomes to those for boys, whose athletic participation rates held constant during the same time, she demonstrated that athletic participation contributed to, rather than just merely correlated with, those outcomes. Specifically, she concludes that every 10% increase in girls' athletic participation lead to a 1% increase in college attendance, and a 1-2% increase in women's participation in the work force.

Stevenson's research, forthcoming in the Review of Economics and Statistics, thus provides support for continuing to expand athletic opportunities for girls as well as boys. It also supports Easterbrook's conclusion that college athletic departments should be promoting -- rather than undermining -- the benefits of sports participation in the classroom.

DI Schools Allocate Smaller Share of Athletic Budget for Women's Sports

Inside Higher Ed reported last week on the NCAA's recent update to its biennial gender equity report, which provides statistics on athletic participation and funding for women's sports. For the most part, college women's sports fared as well in 2005-2006, the years covered by the current report, as they had in 2003-2004, the last year for which the NCAA had published data. The average percentage of athletic opportunities afforded to women at Division I institutions nudged up slightly from 44% to 45%, while the average at Division II & III schools continues to hover at 41% and 42% respectively.

But while the percentage of opportunities allocated to female athletes held steady, the percentage of money allocated to women's teams has dipped downward a bit. Among Division I schools, the average percentage of athletic department funds allocated to women's sports has gone from was 37% in 2003-04 to 34% in 2005-06. Average spending on both men's and women's sports has increased in absolute terms, but men's teams are receiving comparatively more than women. Which means that, even in these tough, budget-cutting times, schools are finding money to increase their athletic budgets overall. They are chosing, however, to allocate more of these new funds to men's teams than to women's.

While Title IX does not require schools to spend equal or proportionate dollars on men's and women's sports, spending disparities are often an indicator that schools are discriminating against female athletes by providing them less favorable treatment than male athletes, who might receive superior equipment and facilities, more coaches, trainers, training tables, covering more travel expenses and meals, better publicity, etc. Thus, the declining percentage of athletic budgets allocated to women's sports could be a sign that such disparities are widening rather than decreasing. In the IHE article, Donna Lopiano suggests that the Bush Administration's failure to enforce Title IX could have a lot to do with this trend. If she's right, there's one more place we can look for change from the next Administration.

"The Title IX Blame Game Should End"

...said Marj Snyder of the Women's Sports Foundation to the Wall Street Journal in an article about the Foundation's new study on college sport participation.

Consistent with prior studies (e.g.), the WSF report concludes that both men's and women's participation has increased in the last 25 years, which itself should neutralize criticism that Title IX hurts men. It is true that the number of teams in certain men's sports have declined and that many schools today offer fewer teams for men than for women, but since men's teams (e.g., football) offer more opportunities, no net loss in participation opportunities has occurred. The report also points out that the only years when men's athletic participation declined was in 1984-87, a period when Title IX did not apply at all to college athletics, due to a Supreme Court decision that was later negated by Congress.

The report also demonstrates that universities have more often responded to Title IX by adding women's teams than by cutting men's teams. Schools that weren't in compliance in 1995-96, for example, were less likely to reduce men's opportunities and more likely to add women's opportunities than those who were. The report also presents financial data showing that rapidly increasing athletic department expenditures, which may cause the financial straits that cause schools to make cuts, are concentrated at Division I instituitons in football and men's basketball rather than women's sports.

Last the report considers a number of factors that may have influenced the realignment of sports offerings. For instance, increased participation in men's and women's lacrosse may be due to the perception of universities that lacrosse players possess traits that universities value, such as stronger academic preparation and families with higher income levels. The higher injury rate associated with gymnastics, coupled with the rising cost of health care, helps explain the declining number of teams in that sport, while the decline in tennis teams correlates to prevalence of international players, which might make the sport less appealing to schools, especially state schools, that need to serve a local market.

The report is being criticized by the College Sport Council, an advocacy group for men's sports, which argues that the WSF report relies on unverifiable data from the NCAA. However, according to the report, even using data collected by the Department of Education under the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act, men's opportunities have still increased 5.1% in the last 25 years (compared to the 6.3% increase you get using NCAA's data).

NCAA Releases Report on Athletic Department Profitability

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported last week that the NCAA has released a report on the finances of college athletic departments. The report is notable because it is the first time the NCAA has broken out "allocated" revenue (money the department gets from the institution itself) from "generated" revenue (money that it gets from outside sources, such as ticket sales and private donations) in reporting on the profitability of athletics. Past NCAA reports as well as government data fail to make this crucial distinction, and this fuzzy accounting has obscured the true cost of college athletics.

When you don't count institutional subsidies as revenue, only 17 out of 300 Division I program (5%) were profitable during the 2004-2006 period that was the scope of the study. 16 of these programs were in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly, DI-A). Moreover, DI institutions' expenditures rose an average of 23%, outpacing the increase in revenue, which rose 16%.

Why is this important and what does this have to do with Title IX? The new report is important because it begins to dismantle the common misperception that college athletics can generate "profit" for the institution, which is to blame for the epidemic of profit-seeking that has unmoored college athletics from its educational mission. Among other problems the commercial mentality has caused (commodification of athletes, low graduation rates, etc.) it has also incited an arms race of spending on state of the art facilities and other amenities that are designed more to help recruiting than to contribute to a meaningful student-athlete experience.

To be sure, some of this spending trickles down to sports that do not operate in profit-seeking mode, a category that includes nearly all women's sports. The Chronicle gives some examples "state of the art facilities for sports that have no chance of recouping the costs of those structures" like softball, swimming, and soccer. This statement illustrates the problem with the commercial mentality of sport and why it is bad for women. The ability to "recoup costs" is inconsistent with not-for-profit, educationally sponsored athletics. This irrelevant consideration also results in a spending bias against sports that happen not to appeal to the public, which, unfortunately includes nearly all women's sports. The so-called profit sports still receive the lions share of the money. And the minority of funds that do wind up in "state of the art softball fields" are usually blamed as the sole source of economic strain that causes universities to cut teams, a burden borne largely by men's teams (but only because women are underrepresented in the first place). This situation creates backlash against Title IX and women's sports and alienates women's sports from its natural allies in men's sports like wrestling.

I have no optimism that colleges will change their paradigms out of concerns for the educational mission of sport. But rational administrators, confronted with the reality of the low likelihood of turning a profit, should think twice before entering into or sustaining a commercial mentality. Athletic departments need to accept their role in not-for-profit education, and spend accordingly --in a manner proportional to the value of sports to the students themselves, sacrificing "state of the art" in select sports in order to more equitably support a wider array of student-centered athletic opportunities.

Student Note Criticizes EADA

In 1994, Congress passed the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act, which requires colleges and universities subject to Title IX to report information about the number of athletic opportunities it provides to both sexes as well as certain information about athletic department expenditures (and revenues) for men's and women's programs. In a note in the Journal of College and University Law, student Kathryn Keen criticizes the EADA and argues for its repeal.

First, Keen argues that the EADA is failing in its purpose of helping prospective student-athletes decide on a college, since student-athletes are not aware of the information it makes available and don't factor it into their decisionmaking. Personally, I have never heard that helping prospective student-athletes was the purpose of the EADA and the only support for this idea is a buried statement on the Department of Ed's website. The real value of disclosing gender equity data is much broader -- it is to help the public ensure that federal dollars are not funding discrimination. The EADA makes private enforcement of Title IX possible by exposing schools with gender equity problems and by giving individuals with grievances the information they need to decide whether a violation has occurred. When similar reporting requirements don't apply, violations are more easily concealed because compliance information is so difficult to acquire. This is why legislation is pending to expand these reporting requirements to high schools, which are not subject to the EADA.

Keen's more persuasive critique of the EADA is that the data schools submit is inaccurate and/or fails to conform to a uniform standard that allows for meaningful comparison. Because the statute does not require schools to employ standard accounting practices, schools have some flexibility to generate a more favorable fiscal picture. For example, they may distinguish, and thus exclude, capital expenditures, which makes capital-intensive sports (like football) appear more profitable. Even when schools aren't deliberately manipulating financial data, by innocently assigning a particular expenditure to a different budget category than other schools, they make it difficult to make comparisons and spot trends. (Compare, for example, a school that accounts for utilities as a department expense and a school that apportions the bill to its men's and women's athletics programs based on their relative use.) Moreover, there is also no audit process or other mechanism for the Department of Education to catch and correct even obvious, plain errors, such as a $34 million data entry mistake in a report filed by the University of Texas. And, though Keen looked at the reporting of financial information, not the reporting of number athletic opportunities, we've had opportunity to note, there are even reporting discrepancies there as well.

But while I agree with Keen that the EADA is flawed in this regard, I don't agree with her conclusion that the statute should be scrapped. I think that the transparency the statute provides is enormously valuable, not necessarily to prospective students (though this is probably somewhat and increasingly so), but to the public at large. Information is the foundation for private enforcement, which has been demonstrably more effective than agency enforcement at bringing about real improvements in gender equity. To that end, it is crucial for reported data to be accurate and standardized. Rather than calling for its repeal, we could seek to improve the EADA along these lines, by requiring standard accounting practices, imposing an audit system or one of peer review, by clarifying schools' obligations to include and apportion particular expenses. The NCAA, Keen points out, has already implemented a more stringent, meaningful, and accurate reporting obligation for its members (this is not a substitute for the EADA, though, since NCAA does not make its reports public). This could provide a model for the Department of Education to follow -- not to mention a retort to schools who might otherwise object that enhanced reporting requirements increase the the workload of their number-crunchers.

Citation: Kathryn Keen, The Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act: Does it Really Improve the Gender Equity Landscape?, 34 J. of College & Univ. L. 227 (2007).

Study: Title IX benefits correlate to socioeconomic privilege and political views

Professor Betsey Stevenson of the Wharton School at UPenn examined the effect of Title IX on athletic participation at U.S. high schools, and published her study in the current issue of Contemporary Economic Policy (SSRN version is here).

Stevenson's analysis of participation data compiled by the National Federation of High Schools confirms the statistical narrative that we've noted here before, namely, that female participation rates have increased since Title IX and male participation rates have remained stable and higher on the whole. She also reports that while boys' participation rates overall have been both stable and high, particular sports have trended both upwards and downward in popularity. For example, high school football, baseball, and soccer (especially soccer!) have gained participants since 1971 while basketball, track, and wrestling have lost.

Stevenson also analyzed high school participation rates for each gender by state, and discovered that socioeconomic demographics and political climate correlate to gendered patterns of athletic participation. For example, in states with more urban populations, boys tend to have higher participation rates than girls. But in states with more college educated populations, and in states that spend more per pupil, the gender gap is smaller and boys and girls participation rates are more similar. Moreover, female athletes fare better in states where the population is more likely to agree that women should have access to abortions, and fare worse in states where the population is more likely to agree that women should "take care of running the home and leave the running of the country up to men."

These results suggest that the benefits of Title IX have inured disportionately to those who are socioeconomically advantaged. They also suggest that athletic participation for girls is part of a greater social movement towards equality and that "as attitudes [about women's equality generally] change, so will the gender gap in sports participation."

Citation: Stevenson, B. (2007). Title IX and the evolution of high school sports. Contemporary Economic Policy, 25(4), 486-505.

Via Odd Numbers.

Gender Gap in High School Athletics, By State

The Women's Sports Foundation recently published* 2006-07 data showing for each state the percentage of high school athletic opportunities offered to girls. WSF then ranked each state by the difference between the percentage of athletic opportunity for girls and the percentage of female students overall.

By this measure, the number one state for female high school athletes is ... New Hampshire! New Hampshire girls receive 47.1% of high school athletic opportunities and make up 49% of the student population, giving it the highest score of any state, -1.9. Pennsylvania was a close second place, with a score of -2. Maine, Vermont, and Minnesota rounded out the top five (all > -3).

Alabama, whose high schools only offer 32.3% of athletic opportunities to girls, has the worst score of any state, -17. Louisiana, D.C., Tennessee, and South Carolina round out the bottom of the list, with scores ranging from -15.9 to -12.5.

*a temporary "homemade" link is provided here, which I will replace with an official, permanent WSF link once the data summary is posted on its website.