Sports culture as national capital: the influence of family, public policy and infrastructure on physical activity (poland’s experience for ukraine)

<jats:p>The purpose of the article is to substantiate sports culture as a reproducible form of the nation’s socio-economic capital and to determine the mechanism through which the interaction of family sports socialization, public policy, and accessible infrastructure transforms population physical activity into economic returns – domestic demand for sporting goods and services, business revenue, employment, tax receipts, higher productivity, and lower treatment costs. The study applies systems, comparative, and statistical methods, and conducts a critical analysis of official data from the World Health Organization, Eurostat, Statistics Poland, and the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine. The results demonstrate that family influences shape a child’s initial sports behavior, while the sustainability of this behavior depends on the safety, accessibility, and organized use of sports infrastructure. Poland’s experience demonstrates interconnected growth in sports participation, the cycling network, the club sector, household expenditure and demand for sporting goods and services. The study establishes that the economic effect arises not from the mere fact of spending money on sport but from the transformation of additional demand into domestic production and services, jobs, tax receipts and lower losses caused by disease. In 2024, the EU sports sector employed 1.6 million people, 37% of whom were aged 15–29, while more than 5,000 sporting goods manufacturers generated approximately EUR 8 billion in turnover in 2023. Achieving the recommended level of physical activity could save EU countries almost EUR 8 billion at purchasing power parity annually, while every EUR 1 invested in the relevant policy may generate approximately EUR 1.7 in economic benefits. For Ukraine, the article proposes a benchmark scenario in which a 4.9 percentage-point increase in participation in a program serving 1 million adults would translate to approximately 49,000 additional active participants. The scientific novelty lies in the operationalization of the “national sports code” as a measurable chain of family practices, infrastructure accessibility, regular participation, human capital development, and economic returns. The practical significance lies in identifying indicators by which public sports programs should be evaluated, not only by the number of facilities constructed but also by population participation, domestic demand, sports business revenue, employment, tax receipts, and savings in medical expenditure. Keywords: sports culture, human capital, family sports socialization, physical activity, sports infrastructure, economic returns, Poland, Ukraine</jats:p>