The changing returns to physical exercise in China (2010-2023): a nine-wave repeated cross-sectional study.

IF 3.8 3区心理学 Q2 PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Frontiers in Psychology Pub Date : 2026-10-05 eCollection Date: 2026-01-01 DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1912354

Lamei Deng, Zhicheng Wang, Wei Liu, Chenyong Wei

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background: Since 2008, when China began to implement its strategy of building a sports power, the institutional context of physical exercise has changed substantially. Yet the temporal dynamics of the socioeconomic correlates of exercise remain underexplored.

Objectives: To examine whether and how physical exercise participation and its associations with income, self-rated health, and social trust changed over the 2010-2023 study period.

Methods: Using nine waves of the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS 2010-2023, N = 78,467), we estimate annual marginal effects of exercise through ordinary least squares regression with exercise-by-year interactions. Three policy periods corresponding to phases of the Sports Power strategy are compared.

Results: Exercise participation rose from 31.68% in 2010 to 51.26% in 2023. The exercise-income association increased from 0.301 (Period 1, 2010-2012) to 0.367 (Period 3, 2018-2023, +21.9%), although formal cross-period tests did not reach statistical significance; the upward trend is therefore only weakly consistent with Hypothesis 1. The exercise-health association was negative and appeared to deepen across periods, but the cross-period differences lost statistical significance once the non-comparable 2011 wave was excluded, so this apparent change is interpreted cautiously. The exercise-trust association moved from a non-significant -0.013 to -0.101 (SE = 0.014). Subgroup analyses showed larger income associations for men than women (0.420 versus 0.279) and for rural than urban residents (0.449 versus 0.180).

Conclusion: Exercise participation rose markedly over the study period, and the exercise-trust association turned increasingly negative, but the exercise-income association did not strengthen to a statistically significant degree, and the health-selection pattern was sensitive to the exclusion of the 2011 wave. The observed changes are read as population-level associations rather than causal effects of the Sports Power strategy.

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中国体育锻炼回报的变化（2010-2023）：一个九波重复横断面研究

背景：2008年以来，中国开始实施体育强国战略，体育锻炼的制度背景发生了重大变化。然而，运动与社会经济关系的时间动态仍未得到充分研究。目的：研究在2010-2023年的研究期间，体育锻炼参与及其与收入、自评健康和社会信任的关系是否以及如何发生变化。方法：利用中国综合社会调查（CGSS 2010-2023, N = 78,467）的九波数据，通过具有运动年交互作用的普通最小二乘回归估计运动的年边际效应。比较了与体育强国战略阶段相对应的三个政策时期。结果：运动参与率从2010年的31.68%上升到2023年的51.26%。运动与收入的相关性从2010-2012年第1期的0.301上升到2018-2023年第3期的0.367，上升了21.9%，但正式的跨期检验没有达到统计学意义；因此，上升趋势与假设1只有微弱的一致性。运动与健康的关联呈负相关，且在不同时期有所加深，但一旦排除2011年不可比较的波动，跨时期差异就失去了统计学意义，因此对这一明显变化的解释要谨慎。运动与信任的关联从不显著的-0.013上升到-0.101 （SE = 0.014）。亚组分析显示，男性的收入关联大于女性（0.420比0.279），农村居民的收入关联大于城市居民（0.449比0.180）。结论：在研究期间，运动参与显著增加，运动信任的相关性越来越负，但运动收入的相关性没有增强到统计学显著程度，健康选择模式对2011年浪潮的排除敏感。观察到的变化被解读为人口水平的关联，而不是体育力量战略的因果效应。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Frontiers in Psychology PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

5.30

自引率

13.20%

发文量

7396

审稿时长

14 weeks

期刊介绍： Frontiers in Psychology is the largest journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the psychological sciences, from clinical research to cognitive science, from perception to consciousness, from imaging studies to human factors, and from animal cognition to social psychology. Field Chief Editor Axel Cleeremans at the Free University of Brussels is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians and the public worldwide. The journal publishes the best research across the entire field of psychology. Today, psychological science is becoming increasingly important at all levels of society, from the treatment of clinical disorders to our basic understanding of how the mind works. It is highly interdisciplinary, borrowing questions from philosophy, methods from neuroscience and insights from clinical practice - all in the goal of furthering our grasp of human nature and society, as well as our ability to develop new intervention methods.