Rich countries do better in women’s football but understanding why matters, not just for the Matildas

‘Gender norms explain some of it, but not all of it’ says Tiya Banerjee, an economist at the e61 Institute

In about a week’s time, the Socceroos will step up against Turkey, their first opponents in this year’s World Cup.

Winning their first match will be a big ask; progressing beyond the first round will be a bigger one.

No disrespect to the men, but if it were the Matildas, hopes would be higher.

After reaching the semi-finals in 2023 on home turf and almost going all the way at the Asian Cup, we have lofty expectations for the Tillies that go beyond their 15th ranking.

Fans of World Cup co-hosts US and Canada will know the feeling. Both have women’s football teams that conspicuously outshine their male counterparts.

Tiya Banerjee, an economist at the e61 Institute, says these examples are not mere coincidences.

Banerjee in a new report has crunched the numbers and says it is in fact part of a broader pattern that would be familiar to enthusiasts of the beautiful game: that rich countries do better in women’s football.

Maybe richer countries are just better at sport in general. This first theory falls over immediately.

If being rich by itself was enough to explain a nation’s sporting prowess, the women’s and men’s teams of wealthy countries would be equally successful.

“This means that at least part of their [wealthy countries’] advantage is specific to women’s football, not football in general,” Banerjee says.

Perhaps it’s because richer countries tend to be more progressive and so more supportive of women and girls playing sport, providing a bigger talent pool.

With a lack of data on female participation in sport, Banerjee used female labour force participation as a proxy to test the idea.

She found there was indeed a correlation between the share of women in the workforce and that country’s Fifa world ranking.

But further analysis showed that while gender norms played their part, they only had a “minor effect” on the relationship between a nation’s income and the ranking of its women’s national team.

“Gender norms explain some of it, but not all of it,” Banerjee says.

What explains the phenomenon better is – no surprise – money. Or more specifically, how much a country invests in women’s football.

“That means some of the difference might be how men and women footballers are trained. And here the resources and the training infrastructure of your country matters a lot more for women than for men.”

Public money in the women’s game gives much more bang for the buck because it lacks the huge sums of private money associated with the men