Gender and Family Status Across the Life Course: Constraints on Five Types of Leisure

The family context is considered as it impacts involvement in culturally defined categories of leisure: active, passive, entertainment, social leisure and TV-viewing as well as total leisure are considered. How does family context, which varies across the life course, constrain leisure? Does family context have the same impact for men and women and for married and unmarried? These issues are examined for a subset of a national sample of adults (N=782) who provided behavioral data through multi-day time budget diaries. Using comparable samples of time from each individual, analysis of variance is used to test for differences in means. Family structure is examined as it constrains and facilitates various types of leisure. Women, and in particular, single mothers, are expected to be disadvantaged in terms of leisure time and involvement. Results indicate a more complex interplay of family context, gender-and-marital status and types of leisure. Women in general are not disadvantaged in terms of leisure time, although involvement in types of leisure vary for men and women. Family context often leads to higher or lower amounts of leisure. Post hoc explanations are often necessary, since predictions of differences between those not currently parents and parents were too simple. Models that take family development context and gender into account seem necessary to understand the constraints and opportunities for leisure participation.