The core of the argument is a distinction that is easy to state but consequential in practice: the difference between having a resource and having a genuine opportunity. A facility membership provides formal access, the authors note, but it does not establish whether the individual can reach the venue, manage the physical demands, understand the instruction, adjust participation safely, or fit attendance into everyday life. The Capability Approach, developed by Sen in his work on welfare, development and social justice, is organised around exactly this gap. It distinguishes resources from conversion factors, the personal, social and environmental conditions that determine whether resources become usable; capabilities, the genuine opportunities a person has; and functionings, the activities and states actually realised. Two older adults with the same membership, the same equipment and even the same attendance record may possess very different substantive freedoms.

The authors define PSCILF as older adults’ acquisition, access, use and combination of sport-related goods, services, technologies, facilities and organised settings that directly enable, structure, support or sustain their own participation in sport and exercise. Four analytical conditions delimit the construct. An identifiable sport-related resource must be involved; it must bear a direct functional relationship to the person’s own physical participation; consumption includes access and use, not just private purchase, so publicly funded, community-based, subsidised and commercial provision all count; and, crucially, resource possession remains analytically distinct from the opportunities and outcomes that may arise through participation. Spectator consumption, such as watching professional sport, falls outside the construct because it does not require the consumer’s own bodily involvement.

Why does this resource-level focus matter? Because existing research explains a great deal about who participates and why, but far less about the goods, services, technologies, facilities and organisational arrangements through which participation is made possible. The paper assembles a substantial evidentiary base. A systematic review of 21 studies involving adults aged 50 and older identified outcomes including life satisfaction, socialisation, empowerment and self-confidence. A review of 30 studies of adults aged 55 and older found that health, supportive social environments, team affiliation, achievement, competition and travel commonly motivated continued participation. Survey evidence from 600 Spanish adults aged 50 to 70 associated active sport engagement with stronger social networks and greater satisfaction with personal relationships. Meanwhile, a 15-year population study in Geneva documented persistent socioeconomic inequalities in sport participation and increasing income-related differences among some groups, including older adults, underscoring that opportunities are unequally distributed from the outset.

The evidence also shows that exposure to sport does not generate uniform benefits. A meta-analysis of 25 quantitative studies involving middle-aged and older adults found substantial heterogeneity in the psychosocial outcomes associated with sport participation. A systematic review and meta-analysis of digitally delivered home-based exercise for older adults reported potential benefits alongside considerable heterogeneity in intervention characteristics and outcomes. Formal availability of a programme, membership, facility or technology therefore provides information about resources, but not about the substantive opportunities those resources create for a particular older adult. This is the analytical space the new framework is designed to occupy.

At the heart of the framework is the concept of resource convertibility. Similar services or technologies can generate different practical opportunities because their use is conditioned by health and functional capacity, socioeconomic resources, social relationships, environmental accessibility, technological competence and service organisation. The authors treat service design and institutional arrangements as conversion conditions in their own right, alongside individual circumstances. Pricing structures, participation requirements, physical performance standards and opportunities for service adaptation may expand or restrict the practical choices available to older consumers. Sport services organised around uniform performance standards, purchasing power or technological proficiency may restrict participation for consumers whose circumstances differ from those assumed by providers. Importantly, this locates unequal capability in the interaction between individual characteristics and resource arrangements, rather than attributing limited participation solely to individual deficits.

The framework then specifies three capability-building processes through which effective resource use may expand practical opportunities. Mastery conversion captures the development of practical control through bodily learning, skill acquisition, interpretable feedback and recognised progress. Agency conversion concerns meaningful choice and practical control over the organisation of participation, including the ability to adjust activity type, intensity, timing and support as bodily and everyday circumstances change. Relational-identity conversion captures affiliation, recognition, belonging and the development of socially viable roles through participation. These processes become psychologically and relationally visible through two proximal manifestations: competence, the experience of acting effectively within available opportunities, and connectedness, relational embeddedness generated through continuing interaction and recognition. Neither construct, the authors stress, is equated with capability itself, which refers to the substantive range of opportunities available to the individual.

Supporting evidence for these processes comes from multiple literatures. A systematic review grounded in self-determination theory found that autonomous motivation was associated with exercise participation and persistence, supporting the relevance of volitional engagement. A mixed-methods systematic review of community-based group exercise interventions for older people identified social interaction, enjoyment, routine and perceived benefits as relevant to adherence. A study of 78,002 community-dwelling Japanese adults aged 65 and older across 31 municipalities found that regular participation in sports groups was associated with socioeconomic, psychosocial, social and environmental factors, including emotional support, social networks and access to facilities. Yet group settings are not uniformly beneficial: qualitative research embedded in the GOAL trial in Canada showed that age-matched group exercise could generate supportive peer interaction while also producing challenges related to social comparison, isolation and understandings of the ageing body. The capability value of any participation format, individual, family-based or group-based, depends on whether its resource configuration accommodates the participant’s bodily circumstances, social preferences and desired level of independence.

Perhaps the framework’s most distinctive contribution is its explicit incorporation of capability failure, the recognition that access or participation may coexist with restricted opportunity. Digital technologies may be formally available but difficult to use; commercial services may offer extensive options but remain economically inaccessible; organised programmes may maintain attendance while allowing little meaningful choice or social recognition. Research on digital exclusion among older adults demonstrates that technological access can coexist with limited skills, support and social inclusion. Institutional arrangements may restrict conversion in subtler ways: market-oriented provision can make access dependent on purchasing power, while standardised requirements may privilege able-bodied performance and continuous improvement. The authors also caution that attendance does not establish meaningful choice, recognition or practical control. An older adult may continue using a service while experiencing poor fit, restricted choice, weak social recognition or demands that cannot be sustained. Frequent participation under prescription or pressure is not the same as expanded freedom, and an older adult can possess a meaningful opportunity and legitimately choose not to exercise it.

The framework is consolidated into four theoretical propositions. First, sport-related consumption resources contribute to capability expansion when personal, socioeconomic and relational, and environmental and service conditions allow them to be converted into feasible and valued participation opportunities. Second, effective resource conversion can expand practical and socially valued opportunities through mastery, agency and relational-identity processes. Third, competence and connectedness represent proximal manifestations of capability building associated with the realisation of valued later-life functionings. Fourth, persistent restrictions in resource conversion can prevent sport-related resources from expanding substantive opportunities and can contribute to inequalities in later-life participation. The authors propose that empirical testing should preserve the distinctions among resources, conversion conditions, capability-building processes, proximal manifestations and functionings, warning that measuring PSCILF only through expenditure, service use or participation frequency would obscure the central theoretical question. Longitudinal research, comparative studies across commercial, public, community-based and digital settings, and attention to cases of capability failure, such as unused memberships and discontinued services, are suggested as priorities. As a conceptual analysis, the paper offers a framework and propositions rather than direct empirical confirmation, and its authors are explicit that the expansion of substantive opportunity remains a theoretical proposition requiring testing. Its practical implication, however, is already clear: evaluating age-inclusive sport policy by counting memberships and attendance risks missing the thing that actually matters, whether older adults possess feasible, adaptable and valued opportunities to keep moving on their own terms.

Subject of Research: A capability-based conceptual framework for how sport-related resources build participation opportunities in later life

Article Title: Participatory sport consumption as capability building in later life: a framework for competence, connectedness, and active ageing

Article References: Zhang, Z., Lai, Z. J., & Wan, X. (2026). Participatory sport consumption as capability building in later life: a framework for competence, connectedness, and active ageing. Frontiers in Psychology, 17, Article 1913428. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1913428

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1913428

Keywords: active ageing, capability approach, sport consumption, older adults, participatory sport, competence, connectedness, resource convertibility, capability failure, social inequality, digital exclusion, physical activity