The increasing prospects for leisure

Parks & Recreation, June, 1997 by Geoffrey Godbey, John Robinson

A central assumption of the public recreation and park movement was that free time would increase both in quantity and in importance. During the last decade. the American public appears to seriously question this assumption. More Americans tell survey interviewers they now have less free time. The claim is made in some quarters that North American society is devoted almost exclusively to work. When asked to estimate how much free time they have in surveys, the response of many Americans is "What free time?" and then say they have an average of only 18 hours a week of free time, down reportedly by 50% since the 1970s.

In spite of this, there is increased evidence that a major series of changes has occurred in North American society and, indeed, most other Western countries. These changes include the following:

* The portion of life devoted to work in North America and other modern nations is declining dramatically.

* Free time during the week has increased in the United States by almost one hour per day since 1965 for Americans between the ages of 18 and 65, and may be more than that for those over 65.

* Increased economic well being is a chief cause of gains in free time and, in turn, leisure is increasingly the basis of economic well being.

* About 2/3s of the public rates their leisure as being more important than or equal in importance to their work in both the United States and Canada.

Other changes, however, appear to limit the potential or quality of free time, often in dramatic fashion.

* Large segments of the population always feel rushed, during their leisure as well as during their work.

* The majority of the hours of free time, for many, occur in small segments during weekdays; not on week-ends. Such segments may be less useful for many forms of leisure which people find satisfying.

* Free time is increasingly concentrated in certain age groups over the life span. The vast majority of Americans are not in the labor force from age 60 on, while some younger people with the multiple roles of worker, spouse and parent need more time for their daily routines. The big gains in free time since 1965 have been among older people, a change that needs to be re-thought.

* People spend about 40% of their free time watching television, even though they usually don't rate it as highly satisfying as a free time activity.

* Participation in some forms of leisure activity thought to be desirable, such as civic life and sport, may be declining, although evidence of a decline in "social capital" is not clear.

Increasing Free Time Across the Life Span

Peter Drucker (1989) and others argue that where business has succeeded in the noncommunist world, it has succeeded so well that people can consider satisfying non-economic needs. "[H]alf of the expansion in wealth-producing capacity was used to create leisure time by cutting the hours worked while steadily increasing pay". Drucker further notes that:

An additional third of the increased

wealth-producing capacity has gone into

healthcare, where expenditures have

gone from less than 1 percent of gross

national product to 8-11 percent

(depending on the country) in fifty

years. There has been almost equal

growth--from 2 percent of GNP to

10-11 percent--in the expenditure on

formal schooling; and with more and

more schooling taking place outside the

formal school system, especially in and

by employing institutions, the portion

of GNP that now goes to education is

much higher than the 10 percent

officially reported. Leisure, healthcare

and schooling require goods; they are

not spiritual. Very little of the new

leisure is used for intellectual pursuits

The free hours are more likely to be

spent in front of the television set

watching "Dallas" or sports. Still,

neither leisure nor healthcare nor

education were ever considered

economic satisfactions. They represent

values quite different from those of the

`business society.' they bespeak a

society in which economic satisfactions

are a means rather than a good in

themselves, and in which business

therefore is a tool rather than a way of

life. (pp. 177-8)

This same phenomenon is shown to be taking place in most other modern nations (Ausubel and Grubler, 1994). Table 1 shows that, not only has there been a decline in hours of work per year in the countries shown, but that the American worker is not overworked compared to their counterparts in Germany or Japan.

Table 1. International Comparison of Hours Worked
per Person per Year

YEAR  FRANCE  FRG    UK
1870   2,945  2,941  2,984
1890   2,770  2,765  2,807
1913   2,588  2,584  2,624
1929   2,297  2,284  2,286
1938   1,848  2,316  2,267
1950   1,926  2,316  1,958
1960   1,919  2,081  1,913
1973   1,771  1,804  1,688
1984   1.543  1,620  1,557

YEAR  USA    JAPAN  RATIO OF JAPAN/USA
1870  2,964  2,945  0.99
1890  2,789  2,770  0.99
1913  2,605  2,588  0.99
1929  2,342  2,364  1.01
1938  2,062  2,361  1.15
1950  1,857  2,166  1.16
1960  1,795  2,318  1.29
1973  1,717  2,093  1.22
1984  1,608  2,020  1.26

Rushing As a Way of Life

While Americans and those in other modern nations generally have gained free time, their subjective perception of time is often one of feeling more rushed and that there is never enough time. The percentage of U.S. and Canadian citizens who say they have less free time than they did five years ago is twice as high as the percentage who say they have more free time (Godbey, Graefe and James, 1992; Roper Starch Worldwide 1995; Harper et al, 1997). For some groups, this trend reflects reality; for example, people aged 25 to 34 do tend to have less free time than in 1992 because they are more likely to be working full-time and to have children. Dairy time-use data bear out that assumption. This does not, however, explain why older people also feel they have less free time, when diary data reveals that weekly leisure among mature Americans has increased.