The world of sports is often associated with gender inequality. Women have long faced inequalities in professional fields, schools and households, but also in sports, where men overwhelmingly dominate the highest levels of competition, and are paid more than their female counterparts.
Gender equality in sports is a crucial issue that should not be taken lightly. It requires a change in social attitudes that are not only about equality, but that are informed by a vision of the world in which we all can reach our full potential. It means ensuring that people of all genders are given the opportunity to enjoy the social, psychological and physical benefits that can be gained from participating in sport, without any discrimination on the basis of their gender.
In the context of sport, this means addressing the fact that men continue to receive far more funding for their teams and the same level of media coverage as women. It also involves tackling the perception that men are better at sports, a notion that is rooted in gender stereotypes and outdated cultural assumptions.
The current study aims to add new insights on this subject by using the Special Eurobarometer 525 (April-May 2023) dataset to assess Europeans’ Attitudes towards Gender Equality in Sport. Specifically, it uses Fuzzy-Hybrid TOPSIS to construct a synthetic indicator of attitudes, Latent Profile Analysis to cluster respondents according to their attitude, and Multinomial Logistic Regression to identify socio-economic factors that influence the Attitudes.
