Research on the Sustainable Development of China’s Sports Industry

Abstract

With the continuous development of the modern economy and the enhancement of residents' health consciousness, sports participation has gradually become one of the main choices for people's daily leisure and entertainment. The sustainable development of the sports industry has also become a topic that cannot be ignored in China's overall economic development. This paper mainly focuses on two issues in the development of the sports industry in China. Part I: The impact of residents' sports consumption on the development of regional green economy. The relationship between sports consumption behavior and environmental protection has always been controversial. As a key project supported by the Chinese government for the development of green economy, the green transformation of sports consumption has received more attention at this stage. This part collects panel data from 30 provinces in China, calculates the green GDP Index and sports consumption level of each province, describes the spatial distribution characteristics, and explores the effect of residents' sports consumption on the regional green economy development. This study further divided the samples according to the geographic east-west location and initial Green GDP Index level, focusing on the heterogeneity between different regions. In terms of spatial distribution characteristics, GGDP index shows a gradually decreasing distribution characteristic from the southeast to the northwest. While the sports consumption level does not show an obvious step-by-step pattern of decreasing from the southeast to the northwest like the GGDP index. The regression results show that the sports consumption level has a positive effect on the GGDP Index from the perspective of the whole country. In terms of regional differences, this effect is not significant in the western and poor initial foundation regions. While in the eastern and good initial foundation regions, promoting residents' sports consumption has become an effective way to develop the green economy, a 10% increase in sports consumption level can raise the green GDP Index by more than 0.3 percentage points. While continuing to promote green sports consumption, the rational distribution of sports resources and the cooperation of sports markets among different regions should be the key points for future development. Part II: The impact of physical exercise on the mental health of the elderly. China's aging trend continues to deepen, and the mental health problems of the elderly are getting more serious. As one of the treatment methods to deal with the mental health problems of the elderly, this study aims to provide new empirical evidence for the effect of physical exercise on mental health of the elderly. Based on the cross-sectional data of the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey 2016, this part constructed an economic model of mental health score according to the depression dependence scale with the participation of the elderly in physical exercise as the main explanatory variable. This study further studied that among the elderly who participated in physical exercise, how the frequency, intensity, and items of physical exercise impacts their mental health. The results show that physical exercise has a significantly positive impact on the mental health of the elderly for the vigorous elderly in 60-74 years old, but not on the mental health of the elderly aged 75 and above. The frequency of physical exercise has no significant positive impact on the mental health of the elderly. Compared with low-intensity physical exercise, the impact of high-intensity physical exercise on the mental health of the elderly is significantly negative. Among the sports items, square dance has a significantly positive impact on the mental health of the elderly than walking. The frequency of physical exercise varies from person to person, while low-intensity physical exercise and square dance are more conducive to promoting the mental health of the elderly.