Significance of the background variables in connection with student’s livelihood

These results provided strong indication that student’s own perception of their livelihood (here after livelihood) among the higher education students in Finland seems to be linked with physical activity behaviour, so that the students who considered their livelihood to be meager and uncertain were less likely to engage in physical activities regularly compared to the students who found to be better off financially. It is probably safe to argue that observed relationship may also be connected with chargeable physical activity services, because link seems to be accentuated with the leisure-time physical activity and also was observed in lesser extent between student’s livelihood and commuting physical activity. The link observed between engagement in light physical activities in connection with other activities and student’s own perception of their livelihood seemed not to be so straightforward and did not directly support an idea that student’s meager livelihood would cause lower levels of light physical activities.

The findings of this study are similar to e.g. Nocon et al.’s (2007) and Mäkinen’s(2010) findings that engagement in physical activity seems to be connected with income, although objective income was not used as measurement in this study. Observed connection between student’s livelihood and leisure-time physical activity could be related to the change in physical culture in Finland. Koski (2009) noticed that more and more Finnish people participate in organized and structured physical activities.

Basically, it means that Finnish physical culture has moved from outdoors to indoors and thus leisure-time physical activity is more connected with people’s income and livelihood.

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Two interesting issues to speculate with respect to findings are, that why the link between student’s livelihood and leisure-time physical activity seems to be accentuated within physical activity categories of ‘never or very seldom’ and ‘2-3 times a week’, and why the link was not found between leisure-time physical activity and ‘receiving support from the parents or relatives’ or ‘accommodation cost devour more than half of the money available’. Perhaps, the first issue could be related to overall physical activity levels among higher education students. Major proportion of the students (38%) reported to engage in leisure-time physical activity in the Student Health Survey 2008 (Kunttu and Huttunen, 2009, 196). Maybe engagement in leisure-time physical activity 2-3 times a week is a threshold for so called regular physical activity and this is why student’s financial difficulties have greater effect within the group reporting leisure-time physical activity 2-3 times a week. It is probably safe to argue that regular leisure-time physical activity require more money than random participation to leisure-time physical activities, for example only once a week. Another decisive marker was students who reported to engage in leisure-time physical activity never or seldom. This could argued to exemplify purest form of connection between student’s financial difficulties and engagement in physical activity by reflecting that these students simply just do not have enough money to engage in leisure-time physical activity.

The results showed that there were a little over one fifth of the students whose livelihood was meager and uncertain, but yet reported to engage in leisure-time physical activity 4-6 times a week and on daily basis. It is worth to ponder the impact of lifestyle choices among this population. Tähtinen et al.’s (2002, 49) research that indicated that impact of lifestyle may override effects of the classical structural determinants such as social class and occupational status. Thus, those students who have decided to live physically active lifestyle would continue chosen lifestyle despite of scant livelihood.

Absence of the link between leisure-time physical activity and ‘receiving support from the parents or relatives’ or ‘accommodation cost devoured more than half of the money available’ is more difficult to interpret. Educated guess would be that probably economic support from the parents or relatives can be additional form of livelihood and thus would not be significant factor in defining the students’ livelihood. Concerning accommodation costs, it could be presumed that the students, whose accommodation costs devour more than half of the money available for them, were left with smaller

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amount of expendable money. However, there is no evidence that these same students would perceive their subsistence meager and uncertain as well.

Nevertheless, the results of this study showed that the interrelation between student’s livelihood and engagement in leisure-time physical activity varied among the background variables. The interrelation between students’ livelihood as to adequacy of the money available and engagement in leisure-time physical activity was accentuated among the male students, the students in universities of applied sciences, the students aged under 22 and among the students with no children. This variation could be attributable to variation in student’s livelihood among particular groups, disregarding the male students. Also, the effects originating from the stage of life could be connected to variation among background variables.

Difference in strength of the interrelation between genders is somewhat surprising. One can only ponder why the link between male students’ livelihood and engagement in physical activity was more significant than in the case of female students. Perhaps, it may be related to distribution of male students’ own perception of their livelihood. At the same time, the impact of different types of physical activities selected by men and women could be pondered, as well as, a significance of the suggested link between higher family affluence and higher physical activity among boys (Currie et al 2012, 129). Interestingly, even though the male students showed higher tendency to be in full-time employment during the year, a link between lack of full-time and fewer physical activity perceived by Rovio et al (2009, 32) was not shown in this study, since the male students who indicated higher levels of full-time work were also shown to be a little more physically active in comparison with the male students working less.

The results revealed statistically significant interrelation between student's livelihood and engagement in leisure-time physical activity among the students aged under 22. The accentuated interrelation could be related to the observation that the majority of those students receive economic support from the parents or relatives, and are also the least likely to work full-time during a year. These remarks are supported by Saarenmaa et al.

(2010, 37-39) who investigated livelihood of the higher education students in Finland and noticed that the students aged 18-24 have the lowest median monthly income (700€

a month) among the whole student population. Similarly, the statistically significant

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interrelation found among the students in universities of applied sciences and the students with no children could be explained perhaps by the livelihood levels. The student survey 2010 indicated that the median monthly income of a single higher education student was 771 euros whereas a student living with a spouse and a child had median monthly income of 1470 euros. Also, 47% of students in universities of applied sciences felt that their current income was not enough to cover their monthly costs in comparison with only 30% of the university students. (Saarenmaa et al. 2010, 37-39.) However, the statistically significant interrelation found among the students in universities of applied sciences could also be connected with poor level of the institutions’ sports services.