Contextual factors influencing voluntary organizations’ inclusiveness and individual participation in leisure activities: The Case of Norway

Abstract

While research on participatory inequalities in organized leisure has mainly focused on individual resources and contextual factors, studies linking the individual, organizational and contextual levels are lacking. This study remedies this by investigating the degree to which contextual, organizational and individual factors enhance or inhibit participation in membership-based voluntary leisure organizations among children and adolescents in Norway. We studied the individual, organizational and contextual factors by examining how these factors affect participation across municipalities. Our analyses based on individual, organizational, and municipal data investigate, using a mixed-effects approach, the extent to which organizational resources, organizational inclusiveness, and local public policy are associated with increased participation in leisure activities. Our findings show that contextual factors have little direct explanatory power but moderate individual and organizational characteristics while public policies addressing the supply of leisure activities are at best ineffective and should be aimed to a greater extent at reducing socio-economic inequalities at the individual level.