Why don’t former female athletes have kids? Exploring career and post-career paths in elite sport in Switzerland

Abstract

Female elite athletes are less likely than male elite athletes to have children during their careers, in part because of the difficulty of balancing motherhood and elite sports. Does this childlessness gap disappear or persist in the post-career period? What factors determine the childlessness of former athletes? The article presents the results of a quantitative cross-sectional study of 1255 former elite athletes who participated in at least one national competition in their discipline and reside in Switzerland. The results indicate that women are more likely than men to remain childless in the post-career years, and that they are also more likely than women in the general population to remain childless. The analyses point to the importance of the gendered orientation of sport socialization (for instance, essentialist representations, valorization of masculinity) in understanding ex-athletes’ relationship to parenthood and in explaining their childlessness. Examining the phenomenon of childlessness reveals that socialization of athletes in gendered sport leaves traces on their representations and practices that are visible even after their careers have ended. In particular, women who have experienced the most inverted gender socialization by playing a male sport have the highest rate of childlessness.