On Equality and Olympic Medals


Toward the end of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics I wrote a post in which I observed that countries ranking higher in gender equality won more medals. My conscience nagged me, however, because medals won at the Winter Olympics is predicted by other things, such as latitude (northern countries dominate winter sports), wealth (richer countries have more resources for training), and population (larger countries have more people to win medals). So I collected more data:
Regressions* on medals won (including countries that won none) showed that a country's gender equality** continued to significantly (p < .05) predict medals after controlling for latitude, population, GDP, and income inequality. Here are medals plotted by gender gap rank (lower ranks indicate more gender equality):

Total Medals by Gender Gap Rank


In addition, a country's gender equality continued to significantly predict medals won by women and by men after controlling for latitude, population, GDP, and income inequality. Plotted by gender gap rank:

Women's Medals by Gender Gap Rank


Men's Medals by Gender Gap Rank


Amazingly, gender equality was the most significant and robust predictor of Olympic medals after GDP (wealthier countries won more medals). Population was also significant (larger countries tended to win more medals). Latitude was not.

Importantly, a country's income equality also predicted medals. The greater a country's economic equality, the more Olympic medals it won -- in total, for women, and for men. Here are total medals won by GINI index:

Total Medals by Income Inequality


In short, EQUALITY -- gender and income*** -- is good for winning Olympic medals. But why?

To the extent that equality means equal opportunity, this makes sense. Countries in which people have more equal opportunity to excel in sports (and other domains), regardless of income or gender, should have larger pools of talent from which their Olympic athletes emerge.

Gender inequality may be especially important because it comes with limited stereotypes about what individuals can and cannot do -- not only women, but men as well. Strict ideas about what it means to be a "real man" and a "good woman" limits the number of women and men likely to be seen and encouraged as athletes and the types of sports they play. Gender inequality induces unhealthy competition between and within the sexes, derogating things “feminine,” even if they help athletic performance, like humility and teamwork.

Gender and economic equality may result from and nurture humanitarian values that lift everyone up within a country, along with its overall potential. Olympic glory may be just the beginning.

_______________

Thanks to Feng Bai for suggesting including the GINI index for countries, Lexi Mithel and Sandra Robinson for insights about data and analysis, Lyssa Neel and Michael Lacey for their comments about hidden variables, Stefanie Petermichl for comments about the importance of distinguishing gender equality in health and gender equality in careers, and many others for their great enthusiasm for this analysis!

*I tried a variety of approaches, including standard OLS and Poisson regressions (medals represent count data with a highly skewed distribution) and regressions on the number of medals, the square root of the number of medals, and the number of medals divided by population. Results reported here were robust across these approaches.
**Of the four dimensions comprising the gender gap score in countries (economic, political, health, and educational equality between the sexes), economic and especially educational equality were the ones that predicted Olympic medals for women and for men.
***Interestingly, income inequality and gender inequality were not significantly correlated (N=122, p=.28). The two systems of stratification appear to be independent within country.

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