The Use of Leisure and its Relation to Levels of Occupational Prestige

L UNDBERG'S observation made twenty years ago, that social scientists have paid little attention to the problems of leisure,' holds true today with few exceptions, even though living habits have been altered by the further reduction of the work week.2 Much of the previous research has been approached from a recreational, community, or welfare point of view. Many of these studies appeared in the middle thirties when the enforced leisure of the depression years stimulated communities to become increasingly concerned with the way in which people spent their hours away from work. Moreover, few studies have attempted to consider leisure in terms of the larger cultural context. For example, are the dominant values of the culture reflected in the differential use of leisure time? Is there a systematic relationship between social status and leisure styles? Does the occupational structure influence the ways in which workfree time is spent? Research evidence bearing on these and similar questions is extremely limited. In addition, the question can be raised whether present leisure-time patterns are accurately portrayed by past research. It would appear probable that in recent years increasing amounts of spare time, accompanied by rising income levels, might tend to equalize the frequency of participation in many spare-time activities among different segments of the population. Perhaps certain alleged differences in leisure behavior are more apparent than real. It may well be, as Denney and Riesman suggest, that mass leisure has emerged so suddenly that we tend to interpret it by drawing on the stereotypes of an earlier era.3 The present research views leisure activity as an aspect of social stratification. It focuses on the role of leisure as a part of the lifestyles of individuals occupying different prestige levels.