However, on various measures of time pressure, Japanese respondents reported lower levels of stress

Leisure, Sociology of
Leisure studies, paradoxically, areas much about work as about leisure. Indeed, central issues in the sociology of leisure revolve around leisure activities’
emergence from historical changes in the structure and organization of work, thee ects of work on workers and their need for leisure, and the consumption of leisure made possible by employed labor in the West.
There are widely differing social science views on the character and meaning of leisure in the modern day,
and they reflect both disciplinary and ideological stances of the researchers. This article characterizes recent approaches to the study of leisure by sociologists. It reviews the history of leisure as a sphere of activity in the West and looks at two themes that organize much of the literature on leisure—the time and place of leisure, and leisure as are ection of culture. Finally, the article suggests trends that will likely inspire changes in leisure patterns and, hence,
sociological research.
1.
Approaches to Leisure
Although leisure is an increasingly organized and economically important social activity in the developed world, sociologists have rarely made leisure a central focus of study. Rather, leisure is typically treated as ancillary to the study of work, and sometimes to the study of culture. Work, sociologists often assume, defines the character, need, type, and meaning of leisure, making leisure a consequence, or a residual category in studies of work.
Sociologists are not the only social scientists to study leisure. Neoclassical economists typically de-
fined leisure as ‘nonwork,’ the time leftover after work, with workers preferences determining how they allocate their time. Gary Becker (1965) revised this presumption by arguing that leisure, as well as work, is an economic activity. Leisure is the time used for consuming goods purchased through wages. Recent economic approaches follow on Becker’s ideas and often concern the ways in which people make tradeoffs
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Copyright
# 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
ISBN: 0-08-043076-7