| Abstract: |
This study is the first to present evidence of the return to leisure sports in
the job hiring process by sending fictitious applications to real job openings
in the Swedish labor market. In the field experiment job applicants were
randomly given different information about their type and level of leisure
sport being engaged in. Applications which signal sport skills have a
significantly higher callback rate of about two percentage points for men, and
this effect is about twice as large in physically demanding occupations. This
indicates a health-productivity interpretation of the results. However, the
result is mainly driven by the return to sports as soccer and golf, and not at
all by more fitness related sports as running and swimming, which is
indicative of alternative explanations for the labor market sports premium.
One possible explanation emerges when analyzing register data on adult
earnings and physical fitness when enlisting at age 18. The fitness premium,
net of unobservable family variables, is in the order of 4-5 percent, but
diminishes to 1 percent when controlling for non-cognitive skills. Hence,
these results indicate that being engaged in leisure sports signals having
important social skills. |