By merging administrative data on public finances of all municipalities in Germany with individual data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we explore whether local public expenditures on sports facilities influences individual labor market outcomes. Our identification strategy follows a selection-on-observables approach and exploits the panel structure of the data covering 12 years between 2001 and 2012. The results of our matching estimations suggest that both women and men exposed to high annual expenditure levels (i.e. €31–€85 per capita) over 5 years, obtain approximately €150 of additional household net income on average. However, this income effect is captured by earning gains for men rather than for women living in the household. Additional analysis suggests, that these gender differences, which can also be observed in terms of working time, hourly wage and employment status, appear plausible since women in the age cohort under consideration are less likely to engage in sports in general, and in any of the publicly funded sports facilities in particular. Moreover, improved well-being and health are possible mechanisms through which the positive labor market effects for men may unfold.

通过将德国所有城市公共财政的行政数据与德国社会经济专家小组的个人数据合并，我们探索了当地在体育设施上的公共支出是否会影响个人劳动力市场的成果。我们的识别策略遵循“可观察的选择”方法，并利用了2001年至2012年之间12年的数据的面板结构。我们的匹配估计结果表明，两者在5年内承受高年度支出水平（即人均31-85欧元）的男女，平均可获得约150欧元的家庭净收入。但是，这种收入效应是通过赚取收入而不是居住在家庭中的男性而不是女性来体现的。进一步的分析表明，这些性别差异（在工作时间，小时工资和就业状况方面也可以观察到）似乎是合理的，因为所考虑的年龄组中的妇女通常不太可能从事体育运动，并且在任何一项运动中特别是由公共资助的体育设施。此外，改善福祉和健康是可能的机制，通过这些机制可以发挥对男子的积极劳动力市场影响。