Who Has It Best? Women's Labor Force Participation, Perceptions of Leisure and Constraints to Enjoyment of Leisure

Abstract

IntroductionThe ideological underpinnings of post-World War II period in Britain and North America has been described as reconstructed liberalism, and central to this ideology was the claim that enormous expansion and transformation of entailed new spaces for freedom and individuality. Leisure was seized upon to reaffirm link between capitalism, freedom and good society (Seidman, 1987, p. 72). This optimism led to emergence of studies as an interdisciplinary field and research domain in American, Canadian and British universities in 1960s and 1970s. Leisure was generally conceived of as and freely chosen activity. For individual, notion of free time meant not obligated to others in one's personal and institutional membership groups. Roberts (1970, p. 6) provides an explicit mainstream definition of what constitutes leisure or free time:Leisure can be defined as that is nor obligated, and activities can be defined as activities that are non-obligatory. At work, a man's is not his own and his behavior is not responsive purely to his own whims. Outside work, there are certain duties that men are obliged, either by custom or law, to fulfil, such as obligations that an individual has towards his family. When these obligations have been met, a man has 'free time' in which his behavior is dictated by his own will and preferences, and it is here that is found.The relationship between work and activity and and activity has been a major area of empirical research in studies (c.f., Parker, 1971, 1976, 1985; Salaman, 1974; Gerstl 1963) These studies asked men about their attitudes to work, whether or not they had work-based friendships, and determined whether their work is similar to, or different from their after-work pursuits. These studies did not ask men about their family lives, except in an implicit way by considering family as part of realm. In Gerstl's study of relationship between occupational and pursuits of admen, dentists and professors, spent with children and spent in household chores were considered part of the realm of (in terms of range, from family outward into community) (Gerstl, 1963, p. 148). The work done by men in home is non-obligatory and constitutes a preference in their use of their free time or leisure.Few would call all work women do in household maintenance and childcare Time devoted to housekeeping and childcare is usually not leisure but rather constitutes a compulsory (obligatory) use of non-paid work time, although there is a certain amount of elasticity here. Some housekeeping tasks are taken on for gratifications entailed in doing them (e.g., planting bulbs, making cushions) and childcare has its inherent and pleasurable rewards. However, much of social reproduction labour of women is obligatory and implicated in care of other family members, and women's productive labour is also configured around domestic obligations (c.f., Chambers, 1986; Fox, 1992; Henderson, 1989; Henderson & Allen, 1991).While mainstream concept of as or activity often rests on assumption of primacy of male work roles in full employment, question of work and becomes more complex for study of women workers. Household and familial constraints must figure into an analysis of work and experiences of women and, increasingly, men as well. To that end, present research on effects of labor force participation (i.e., one's status as full or part employee, or full homemaker) on women's experience of leisure, also examines impact of marital status and presence of children in home. Age, income and education are included in analysis as well. The general research question approached here is whether or not labor force participation (full time, part time, or homemaker) itself significantly affects women's meaning systems, their experience of and entails constraints to their enjoyment of leisure. …