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Leisure has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time.
Free time is
time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
spent away from
business
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...
,
work
Work may refer to:
* Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community
** Manual labour, physical work done by humans
** House work, housework, or homemaking
** Working animal, an animal tr ...
,
job hunting
Job hunting, job seeking, or job searching is the act of looking for employment, due to unemployment, underemployment, discontent with a current position, or a desire for a better position. The immediate goal of job seeking is usually to obtain ...
,
domestic chores, and
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
, as well as necessary activities such as
eating
Eating (also known as consuming) is the ingestion of food, typically to provide a heterotrophic organism with energy and to allow for growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive — carnivores eat other animals, herbi ...
and
sleep
Sleep is a sedentary state of mind and body. It is characterized by altered consciousness, relatively inhibited sensory activity, reduced muscle activity and reduced interactions with surroundings. It is distinguished from wakefulness by a de ...
ing. Leisure as an experience usually emphasizes dimensions of perceived freedom and choice. It is done for "its own sake", for the quality of experience and involvement.
Other classic definitions include
Thorsten Veblen's (1899) of "nonproductive consumption of time." Free time is not easy to define due to the multiplicity of approaches used to determine its essence. Different disciplines have definitions reflecting their common issues: for example, sociology on social forces and contexts and psychology as mental and emotional states and conditions. From a research perspective, these approaches have an advantage of being quantifiable and comparable over time and place.
Leisure studies
Leisure studies is a branch of the social sciences that focuses on understanding and analyzing leisure. Recreation and tourism are common topics of leisure research.
The National Recreation and Park Association is the national organization in ...
and
sociology of leisure
The sociology of leisure or leisure sociology is the study of how humans organize their free time. Leisure includes a broad array of activities, such as sport, tourism, and the playing of games. The sociology of leisure is closely tied to the so ...
are the
academic discipline
An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...
s concerned with the study and analysis of leisure.
Recreation
Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasur ...
differs from leisure in that it is a purposeful activity that includes the experience of leisure in activity contexts. Economists consider that leisure times are valuable to a person like wages that they could earn for the same time spend towards the activity. If it were not, people would have worked instead of taking leisure. However, the distinction between leisure and unavoidable activities is not a rigidly defined one, e.g. people sometimes do work-oriented tasks for
pleasure
Pleasure refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious anima ...
as well as for long-term utility. A related concept is social leisure, which involves leisurely activities in social settings, such as extracurricular activities, e.g. sports, clubs. Another related concept is that of family leisure. Relationships with others is usually a major factor in both satisfaction and choice.
The concept of
leisure as a human right was realised in article 24 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal De ...
.
History
Leisure has historically been the privilege of the
upper class
Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is gen ...
. Opportunities for leisure came with more money, or organization, and less working time, rising dramatically in the mid-to-late 19th century, starting in Great Britain and spreading to other rich nations in Europe. It spread as well to the United States, although that country had a reputation in Europe for providing much less leisure despite its wealth. Immigrants to the United States discovered they had to work harder than they did in Europe. Economists continue to investigate why Americans work longer hours. In a recent book, Laurent Turcot argues that leisure was not created in the 19th century but is imbricated in the occidental world since the beginning of history.
Canada
In Canada, leisure in the country is related to the decline in work hours and is shaped by moral values, and the ethnic-religious and gender communities. In a cold country with winter's long nights, and summer's extended daylight, favorite leisure activities include horse racing, team sports such as hockey, singalongs, roller skating and board games. The churches tried to steer leisure activities, by preaching against drinking and scheduling annual revivals and weekly club activities. By 1930 radio played a major role in uniting Canadians behind their local or regional hockey teams. Play-by-play sports coverage, especially of ice hockey, absorbed fans far more intensely than newspaper accounts the next day. Rural areas were especially influenced by sports coverage.
France
Leisure by the mid-19th century was no longer an individualistic activity. It was increasingly organized. In the French industrial city of
Lille
Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Pref ...
, with a population of 80,000 in 1858, the cabarets or taverns for the working class numbered 1300, or one for every three houses. Lille counted 63 drinking and singing clubs, 37 clubs for card players, 23 for bowling, 13 for skittles, and 18 for archery. The churches likewise have their social organizations. Each club had a long roster of officers, and a busy schedule of banquets, festivals and competitions.
United Kingdom
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As literacy, wealth, ease of travel, and a broadened sense of community grew in Britain from the mid-19th century onward, there was more time and interest in leisure activities of all sorts, on the part of all classes.
[Peter J. Beck, "Leisure and Sport in Britain." in Chris Wrigley, ed., ''A Companion to Early Twentieth-Century Britain'' (2008): 453-69.]
Opportunities for leisure activities increased because real wages continued to grow and hours of work continued to decline. In urban Britain, the nine-hour day was increasingly the norm; the
1874 Factory Act
The Factory Acts were a series of acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to regulate the conditions of industrial employment.
The early Acts concentrated on regulating the hours of work and moral welfare of young children employed ...
limited the workweek to 56.5 hours. The movement toward an eight-hour day. Furthermore, system of routine annual vacations came into play, starting with white-collar workers and moving into the working-class. Some 200 seaside resorts emerged thanks to cheap hotels and inexpensive railway fares, widespread banking holidays and the fading of many religious prohibitions against secular activities on Sundays.
By the late
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
, the leisure industry had emerged in all British cities, and the pattern was copied across Western Europe and North America. It provided scheduled entertainment of suitable length and convenient locales at inexpensive prices. These include sporting events, music halls, and popular theater. By 1880 football was no longer the preserve of the social elite, as it attracted large working-class audiences. Average gate was 5,000 in 1905, rising to 23,000 in 1913. That amounted to 6 million paying customers with a weekly turnover of £400,000. Sports by 1900 generated some three percent of the total gross national product in Britain. Professionalization of sports was the norm, although some new activities reached an upscale amateur audience, such as lawn tennis and golf. Women were now allowed in some sports, such as archery, tennis, badminton and gymnastics.
Leisure was primarily a male activity, with middle-class women allowed in at the margins. There were class differences with upper-class clubs, and working-class and middle-class pubs. Heavy drinking declined; there was more betting on outcomes. Participation in sports and all sorts of leisure activities increased for average English people, and their interest in spectator sports increased dramatically.
By the 1920s the cinema and radio attracted all classes, ages, and genders in very large numbers. Giant palaces were built for the huge audiences that wanted to see Hollywood films. In Liverpool 40 percent of the population attended one of the 69 cinemas once a week; 25 percent went twice. Traditionalists grumbled about the American cultural invasion, but the permanent impact was minor.
The British showed a more profound interest in sports, and in greater variety, that any rival. They gave pride of place to such moral issues as sportsmanship and fair play.
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
became symbolic of the Imperial spirit throughout the Empire. Soccer proved highly attractive to the urban working classes, which introduced the rowdy spectator to the sports world. In some sports, there was significant controversy in the fight for amateur purity especially in rugby and rowing. New games became popular almost overnight, including golf, lawn tennis, cycling and hockey. Women were much more likely to enter these sports than the old established ones. The aristocracy and landed gentry, with their ironclad control over land rights, dominated hunting, shooting, fishing and horse racing.
Cricket had become well-established among the English upper class in the 18th century, and was a major factor in sports competition among the public schools. Army units around the Empire had time on their hands, and encouraged the locals to learn cricket so they could have some entertaining competition. Most of the Empire embraced cricket, with the exception of Canada. Cricket test matches (international) began by the 1870s; the most famous is that between Australia and Britain for "
The Ashes
The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. The term originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, ''The Sporting Times'', immediately after Australia's 1882 victory at The Oval, its first Te ...
".
Types
The range of leisure activities extends from the very informal and casual to highly organised and long-lasting activities. A significant subset of leisure activities are
hobbies
A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing oth ...
which are undertaken for personal satisfaction, usually on a regular basis, and often result in satisfaction through skill development or recognised achievement, sometimes in the form of a product. The
list of hobbies
This is a partial list of hobbies. A hobby is an activity, interest, or pastime that is undertaken for pleasure or relaxation, done during one's own leisure
Leisure has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free ti ...
is ever changing as society changes.
Substantial and fulfilling hobbies and pursuits are described by Sociologist Robert Stebbins
as ''serious leisure''. The ''serious leisure perspective'' is a way of viewing the wide range of leisure pursuits in three main categories: casual leisure, serious leisure, and project-based leisure.
Serious leisure
"''Serious leisure'' is the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist, or volunteer ... that is highly substantial, interesting, and fulfilling and where ... participants find a
eisurecareer...".
For example, collecting stamps or maintaining a public wetland area.
People undertaking serious leisure can be categorised as
amateur
An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...
s,
volunteers
Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...
or
hobby
A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing Sport, sports, or pursu ...
ists. Their engagement is distinguished from casual leisure by a high level of perseverance, effort, knowledge and training required and durable benefits and the sense that one can create in effect a leisure career through such activity.
The range of serious leisure activities is growing rapidly in modern times
with developed societies having greater leisure time, longevity and prosperity. The Internet is providing increased support for amateurs and hobbyists to communicate, display and share products.
Reading
As literacy and leisure time expanded after 1900, reading became a popular
pastime
A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing oth ...
. New additions to adult fiction doubled during the 1920s, reaching 2800 new books a year by 1935. Libraries tripled their stocks, and saw heavy demand for new fiction. A dramatic innovation was the inexpensive paperback, pioneered by
Allen Lane
Sir Allen Lane (born Allen Lane Williams; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) was a British publisher who together with his brothers Richard and John Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fictio ...
(1902–70) at
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.[Mills and Boon
Mills & Boon is a romance imprint of British publisher Harlequin UK Ltd. It was founded in 1908 by Gerald Rusgrove Mills and Charles Boon as a general publisher. The company moved towards escapist fiction for women in the 1930s. In 1971, the ...]
the leading publisher. Romantic encounters were embodied in a principle of sexual purity that demonstrated not only social conservatism, but also how heroines could control their personal autonomy. Adventure magazines became quite popular, especially those published by
DC Thomson
DC Thomson is a media company based in Dundee, Scotland. Founded by David Couper Thomson in 1905, it is best known for publishing ''The Dundee Courier'', ''The Evening Telegraph'' and ''The Sunday Post'' newspapers, and the comics ''Oor Wull ...
; the publisher sent observers around the country to talk to boys and learn what they wanted to read about. The story line in magazines and cinema that most appealed to boys was the glamorous heroism of British soldiers fighting wars that were perceived as exciting and just.
Casual leisure
"''Casual leisure'' is immediately, intrinsically rewarding; and it is a relatively short-lived, pleasurable activity requiring little or no special training to enjoy it."
For example, watching TV or going for a swim.
Project-based leisure
"''Project-based leisure'' is a short-term, moderately complicated, either one-shot or occasional, though infrequent, creative undertaking carried out in free time."
For example, working on a single Wikipedia article or building a garden feature.
Cultural differences
![VietnamCombatArtCAT04JamesPollockGICardgame](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/VietnamCombatArtCAT04JamesPollockGICardgame.jpg)
Time available for leisure varies from one society to the next, although anthropologists have found that
hunter-gatherers
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
tend to have significantly more leisure time than people in more complex societies. As a result,
band societies
A band society, sometimes called a camp, or in older usage, a horde, is the simplest form of human society. A band generally consists of a small kin group, no larger than an extended family or clan. The general consensus of modern anthropology ...
such as the
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions:
* Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming
* Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho
* Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah
* Goshute: western Utah, easter ...
of the
Great Basin
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic basin, endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California ...
came across as extraordinarily lazy to European colonialists.
Workaholic
A workaholic is a person who works compulsively. A workaholic experiences an inability to limit the amount of time they spend on work despite negative consequences such as damage to their relationships or health.
There is no generally accepted ...
s, less common than the social myths, are those who work compulsively at the expense of other activities. They prefer to work rather than spend time socializing and engaging in other leisure activities.
European and American men statistically have more leisure time than women, due to both household and parenting responsibilities and increasing participation in the paid employment. In
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, adult men usually have between one and nine hours more leisure time than women do each week.
Family leisure
Family leisure is defined as time that parents, children and siblings spend together in free time or recreational activities, and it can be expanded to address intergenerational family leisure as time that grandparents, parents, and grandchildren spend together in free time or recreational activities.
Leisure can become a central place for the development of emotional closeness and strong family bonds. Contexts such as urban/rural shape the perspectives, meanings, and experiences of family leisure. For example, leisure moments are part of work in rural areas, and the rural idyll is enacted by urban families on weekends, but both urban and rural families somehow romanticize rural contexts as ideal spaces for family making (connection to nature, slower and more intimate space, notion of a caring social fabric, tranquillity, etc.).
Also, much "family leisure" requires tasks that are most often assigned to women. Family leisure also includes playing together with family members on the weekend day.
Aging
Leisure is important across the lifespan and can facilitate a sense of control and self-worth. Older adults, specifically, can benefit from physical, social, emotional, cultural, and spiritual aspects of leisure. Leisure engagement and relationships are commonly central to "successful" and satisfying aging. For example, engaging in leisure with grandchildren can enhance feelings of generativity, whereby older adults can achieve well-being by leaving a legacy beyond themselves for future generations.
See also
*
Conspicuous consumption
In sociology and in economics, the term conspicuous consumption describes and explains the consumer practice of buying and using goods of a higher quality, price, or in greater quantity than practical. In 1899, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen co ...
*
Conspicuous leisure
Conspicuous leisure is a concept introduced by the American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen in ''The Theory of the Leisure Class'' (1899). Conspicuous or visible leisure is engaged in for the sake of displaying and attaining social st ...
*
Entertainment
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...
*
Labour economics
*
Leisure satisfaction "Leisure refers to activities that a person voluntarily engages in when they are free from any work, social or familial responsibilities."Joudrey, A. D., & Wallace, J.E. (2009) Leisure as a Coping Resource: A Test of the Job Demand-Control-Support M ...
*
Lifestyle (sociology)
Lifestyle is the interests, opinions, behaviours, and behavioural orientations of an individual, group, or culture. The term was introduced by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in his 1929 book, ''The Case of Miss R.'', with the meaning of "a per ...
*
Money-rich, time-poor
__NOTOC__
Money-rich, time-poor, is an expression used to describe groups of people who have relatively little leisure time despite having a high disposable income through well-paid employment. Time poverty has also been coined as a noun for the ...
*
Recreation
Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasur ...
*''
The Theory of the Leisure Class
''The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions'' (1899), by Thorstein Veblen, is a treatise of economics and sociology, and a critique of conspicuous consumption as a function of social class and of consumerism, which are ...
''
*''
Travel + Leisure
Travel + Leisure Co. (formerly Wyndham Destinations, Inc. and Wyndham Worldwide Corporation) is an American timeshare company headquartered in Orlando, Florida. It develops, sells, and manages timeshare properties under several vacation ownershi ...
''
*
Waiting for the Weekend
''Waiting for the Weekend'' is a book published in 1991 by Canadian architect, professor and writer Witold Rybczynski.
In ''Waiting for the Weekend'', Rybczynski recounts the evolution of the seven-day week, which came into being with the Babyl ...
*
Work-leisure dichotomy
*
Work-life balance
References
Further reading
*Cross, Gary S. ''Encyclopedia of recreation and leisure in America.'' (2004).
*Harris, David. ''Key concepts in leisure studies''. (Sage, 2005)
*Hunnicutt, Benjamin Kline. ''
Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream.'' (Temple University Press, 2013).
*Ibrahim, Hilmi. ''Leisure and society: a comparative approach'' (1991).
*Jenkins, John M., and J.J.J. Pigram. ''Encyclopedia of leisure and outdoor recreation''. (Routledge, 2003). .
*Kostas Kalimtzis. ''An Inquiry into the Philosophical Concept of Scholê: Leisure As a Political End''. London; New York: Bloomsbury, 2017.
*Rojek, Chris, Susan M. Shaw, and A.J. Veal, eds/ ''A Handbook of Leisure Studies''. (2006).
History of leisure
*Abrams, Lynn. ''Workers' culture in imperial Germany: leisure and recreation in the Rhineland and Westphalia'' (2002).
*Beck, Peter J. "Leisure and Sport in Britain." in Chris Wrigley, ed., A Companion to Early Twentieth-Century Britain (2008): 453–69.
*Borsay, Peter. ''A History of Leisure: The British Experience since 1500'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
*Burke, Peter. "The Invention of Leisure in Early Modern Europe". In: Past and Present 146 (1995), p. 136-150.
*Cross, Gary. ''A social history of leisure since 1600'' (1990).
*De Grazia, Victoria. ''The culture of consent: mass organisation of leisure in fascist Italy'' (2002).
*Hatcher, John. "Labour, Leisure and Economic Thought before the Nineteenth Century". In: Past and Present 160 (1998), p. 64-115.
*Koshar, Rudy. ''Histories of Leisure'' (2002).
*Levinson, David, and Karen Christensen. ''Encyclopedia of world sport: from ancient times to the present'' (Oxford UP, 1999).
*Marrus, Michael R. ''The Emergence of Leisure''. New York 1974
*Poser, Stefan
''Leisure Time and Technology'' European History Online
European History Online (''Europäische Geschichte Online, EGO'') is an academic website that publishes articles on the history of Europe between the period of 1450 and 1950 according to the principle of open access.
Organisation
EGO is issued ...
, Mainz:
Institute of European History The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz, Germany, is an independent, public research institute that carries out and promotes historical research on the foundations of Europe in the early and late Modern period. Though autonomous in ...
, 2011, retrieved: 25 October 2011.
*Stearns, Peter N. ed. ''Encyclopedia of European social history from 1350 to 2000'' (2001) 5:3-261; 18 essays by experts
*Struna, Nancy L. ''People of Prowess Sport Leisure and Labor in Early Anglo-America'' (1996
excerpt*Towner, John, and Geoffrey Wall. "History and tourism." ''Annals of Tourism Research'' 18.1 (1991): 71–84
online*Towner, John. "The Grand Tour: a key phase in the history of tourism." ''Annals of tourism research'' 12#3 (1985): 297–333.
*Turcot, Laurent ''Sports et Loisirs. Une histoire des origines à nos jours'', Paris, Gallimard, 2016.
*Turcot, Laurent "The origins of Leisure", ''International Innovation'', April 201
*Walton, John K. ''Leisure in Britain, 1780-1939'' (1983).
*Withey, Lynne. ''Grand Tours and Cook's Tours: A history of leisure travel, 1750 to 1915'' (1997).
Historiography
*Akyeampong, Emmanuel, and Charles Ambler. "Leisure in African history: An introduction." ''International journal of African historical studies'' 35#1 (2002): 1-16.
*Mommaas, Hans, et al. ''Leisure research in Europe: methods and traditions'' (Cab international, 1996), on France, Poland, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, and the UK.
*
*
External links
Leisure*
Peter Burke (historian), Peter BurkeThe invention of leisure in early modern Europe Past & Present, February 1995
The Development of Leisure Amongst the Social Classes During the Industrial Revolution*
*
{{Authority control
Quality of life