Life-cycle Squeeze, Time Pressure, Daily Stress, and Leisure Participation: A Canadian perspective

Abstract

This article addresses two corollary issues, namely, the relationship between life-cycle and chronic stress, and the effects of leisure participation on stress and health, controlled for life-cycle situation. Arguments have been made that levels of time pressure and perceived stress have risen in modern societies, but that these increases are unevenly distributed among different social demographic groups, in particular groups positioned at different stages of the life-course (Wilensky; 1981; Zuzanek, Robinson and Iwasaki, 1998). It has been also suggested that active life-styles, in particular participation in leisure activities, may serve as an effective tool for moderating negative health effects of stress. In the following analyses these two propositions are put to an empirical test. Data on stress, time pressure, health, and leisure participation, collected as part of the 1994 Canadian National Population Health Survey (n = 17,626), and the 1992 General Social (Time-Use) Survey (n = 9,815) are examined in an attempt to: (a) identify life-cycle groups most exposed to chronic and personal stress; (b) establish the relationship between daily stresses and time pressure; (c) assess the effects of participation in physically active leisure on respondents' stress levels and mental and physical health; and (d) determine how the relationships between life cycle, time pressure, daily stress, health, and leisure participation are affected by gender.