Economics of Gender and Sport

<p>While women’s cricket and women’s sport in general has gained enormously in popularity in terms of both spectators and TV audiences comparatively little is known about it and its participants and there are few if any quantitative assessments of the game. <i>The Economics of Gender and Sport: A Quantitative Analysis of Women’s Cricket</i> fills that gap. </p><p>The work analyses the different forms of cricket - Test cricket One-day T20 – and is based on the latest sets of available data. It seeks to answer questions such as how well female cricketers play how well they are paid who the superstars are and how competitive women’s cricket is. It also examines more general issues which affect men’s cricket too with the over-arching theme of this book being inequality. First the chapters discuss inequality in the distribution of luck. The book discusses the importance of luck in cricket and suggests a way of distinguishing between luck and ability in determining match outcomes. Second there is access inequality which means that players from certain groups have an advantage in terms of being chosen to play in representative teams. Third there is inequality in tournament outcomes and this carries implications for the degree of competitive balance in contests between teams. Fourth is the issue of inequality in the quality of umpiring in men’s and women’s cricket. Fifth there is inequality between men and women in their respective remunerations as cricketeers. Lastly there is inequality in performance between players: the book explains how batting and bowling averages can be adjusted to better reflect player performance.</p><p>The volume will find an audience among advanced students and researchers in sports economics sports-related and gender studies. More generally it will appeal to lovers of cricket who wish to read about the game in terms which are more than simply anecdotal.</p>