Underprivileged Conditions Influencing Youths’ Participation in Sports for Future Employment

The beauty of sports is that it cuts across gender, race, educational background and socio-economic status to benefit those who have the resilience, rigour and discipline to brave the odds. The varieties of sporting events and different human resources needed are an indication of how broad the platform could be, to accommodate different interest groups for self-development. This study examined the nexus of how underprivileged conditions such as birth place (rural/urban), loss of parent(s), among others could influence the choice of sports for self-development and employment. A cross-sectional multistage sampling method was used to select 400 youths who participated in the March, 2022 Nigerian University Games Association hosted by the University of Lagos, Nigeria. The questionnaire administered to the respondents consists of structured self-report inventory. Data obtained was analysed with the use of frequency tables, chi-square and logistic regression. The results show that underprivileged conditions could be a catalyst for youths’ involvement in sports for the purpose of future employment opportunities. In view of this, there should be concerted efforts by stakeholders in sports to expand and maintain facilities and sports festivals to accommodate different interest groups of youths who utilise this avenue for self-development and future employment. This could go a long way in redirecting the energy of our teeming youths away from being recruited into social vices and focus on meaningful self-development sporting programmes that could create viable future employment roles in sports.