What was the difference in the American economy from 2008 to 2018?
There's a huge difference to the positive, in terms of economy in USA. We are so much better now than then. Without getting into Presidential. politics, the numbers completely prove that the nation is far better off in ALL income levels and employment.
The survey actually should be titled something like "Many kids try variety of sports, before settling to continue on by age 11".
The fact is almost all parents have their kids try different sports and some stick and some don't. For an example, my two boys. Older played baseball, basketball and soccer. Played baseball through 12U and quit. Played basketball for two years in a league (NJB) and quit - still plays pickup all the time. Played soccer from U6 and still playing for college. Younger son, played baseball and quit at 10U (LL/AA), and soccer from U6 to current (Senior in HS/U19).
In both kids case, based on their choice of sports, the fallen off sports can be considered "quitting sports" based on the study because they no longer continued.
Do kids quit - absolutely. I'm certain parents push kids that really don't like or have no interest in playing into some sports early on. So if you take the entire population base and say how many quit, yeah a very large number will. But one doesn't need a study to know that, right?
What would be more meaningful is of those that committed to a single sport, how many quit when and why. In my personal experience and friends kids through multiple youth sports, there is a drop off starting around early puberty. The drop off stabilizes through puberty and towards the end of it, there is another large drop. I think one can explain some of it to two key factors:
1) early puberty causes large physical size and strength differences between kids and some late bloomer simply get tired of being beaten up and "man handled"; consequently, lose their desire to play and is no longer a fun activities so they quit.
2) later puberty causes life to happen to them. Growing up introduces other aspects of life that many kids find more important to them and because those who are still playing are dedicated, many simply do not want to put the effort into any given sport.
It appears to me that the title is bit misleading and the underlying assumption lacks some key aspects. If they covered these points, then I didn't read the article close enough - my bad. It just appears that the data analytics people got a hold of the raw data and provided their interpretation based on trends, then fit some surface level research as a substantiation for their outcome....