Gender, care, and sport: an attempt to understand the deficit of women among Norwegian elite-level coaches

Abstract

In this article we ask why so few female coaches work at the elite level in Norway. In order to study this topic, we separately interviewed seven women who have experience as elite coaches. The women state that coaching means sacrificing a normal family life, causing many to abandon the profession. Moreover, female coaches are tasked with additional caregiving work related to following up individual athletes and creating a social environment. In recent decades, the ability to communicate with and understand athletes has been highlighted as a key quality when developing coaches, and we also ask whether emphasizing relational skills among coaches in general will reduce the gender imbalance, and what will happen when care practices are introduced to elite sport. We contend that the emphasis on caring for athletes makes coaching more time-consuming and thus even harder to combine with having children and a family.