Despite notable progress, women in professional sports in India continue to encounter significant challenges, including limited financial viability of sports careers, inadequate visibility on social media and mainstream platforms, and persistently high dropout rates at early stages of participation. Female athletes also confront with conflicting societal expectations: they are often required to conform to traditional standards of femininity while simultaneously striving for peak athletic performance to secure scarce government jobs under sports quotas. To identify effective strategies for reducing early attrition among young female athletes, this study conducted a randomized experiment involving 508 girls actively engaged in sports across five selected Indian states. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Following a baseline survey, the first treatment group viewed a motivational video highlighting the struggles and achievements of prominent female athletes. The second treatment group viewed the same video and additionally received structured information about alternative career pathways within the broader sports ecosystem. The control group received no intervention. The end-line survey revealed that exposure to the motivational video alone had an unintended demotivating effect. In contrast, participants who received both the video and career information demonstrated a significant increase in their motivation to continue participating in sports over the next 5 years. Drawing on these findings and qualitative interviews, the study offers policy recommendations aimed at encouraging sustained sports participation among young women. Specifically, it suggests that athletes in top- and mid-tier training institutions should be systematically provided with information about secondary and allied career opportunities in sports to help them maintain long-term engagement in athletics.
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