ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1573613
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovative Approaches in Psychosocial and Mental HealthView all 10 articles
A study of the effect of sports participation on married youth's fertility intentions -Chain mediation based on marital and family functioning
Provisionally accepted
- 1Jimei University, Xiamen, China
- 2Beijing Sport University, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
- 3East China Jiaotong University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China
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This study investigates the impact of sports participation on the fertility intentions of married young adults in China, utilizing data from the 2022 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). By integrating Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Family Systems Theory (FST), the study hypothesizes that sports participation enhances fertility intentions through mediation by marital and family functioning. A sample of 1,087 valid cases was analyzed using probit regression and structural equation modeling. The results indicate that each one-unit increase in sports participation is associated with a 0.048 higher probability of intending to have a child.Specifically, Structural equation modeling with 1,000 bootstrapped samples confirms that marital functioning mediates this relationship (indirect effect = 0.023, 13.7% of the total effect; p < 0.10), family functioning mediates more strongly (indirect effect = 0.082, 48.8%; p < 0.01), and the chain mediation through both subsystems accounts for 0.063 (37.5%; p < 0.01). This study underscores the importance of both marital and family subsystems in shaping fertility decisions, suggesting that policies promoting sports participation and family-centered support may effectively enhance fertility intentions among young married individuals.
Keywords: Sports participation, fertility intention, Family function, marital function, self-determination theory, Family systems theory
Received: 09 Feb 2025; Accepted: 10 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lin, xinze and cong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Li Lin, Jimei University, Xiamen, China
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