The Leisure Component of the Parental Role

This study applies an alternative analytical approach to married couples' leisure during the parental stage of their life cycle. Leisure is viewed as one of the means through which the parental role is enacted. Leisure participation and perception data were collected from 562 couples, using three survey instruments administered to both spouses separately in 1980–1981, and from a ten percent subsample interviewed in 1985–1986. In spite of some progress toward the symmetrical family, the dual, paternal and maternal leisure pattern is still very much in evidence.