Leisure,income inequality and the Veblen effect: cross-national analysis of leisure time and sport and cultural activity

This paper was prompted by the publication in Britain in 2009 of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always do Better, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, which attracted considerable comment, both positive and negative and both substantive and methodological. The book claimed to show that, on a range of health and social measures of well-being, rich countries with more equal income distributions tended to perform better than those with less equal income distributions. Leisure time and behaviour were not among the indicators of well-being included and, while some researchers have sought to fill this gap, the range of leisure indicators used to date has been limited. This paper examines the relationship between income inequality and leisure time on a world-wide basis, and ten measures of cultural participation and two of sport and physical recreation participation in European countries. Efforts are made to address some of the methodological criticisms which have been made of The Spirit Level. It is found that more equal countries have more leisure time and higher levels of participation in cultural and sporting activities, and that there are also significant relationships with absolute Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per head and with religious-related values. The extent to which variations in leisure time and participation are related to income inequality is linked to Thorstein Veblen’s theory of pecuniary emulation, referred to as the ‘Veblen effect’.     

Basic psychological need satisfaction and affect within the leisure sphere

Research on leisure and well-being in non-Western contexts is rare. Our study addresses this issue by investigating whether satisfaction of three basic psychological needs – autonomy, competence and/or relatedness – influences four types of affective well-being – high-arousal positive (HAP) affect, low-arousal positive (LAP) affect, high-arousal negative (HAN) affect and/or low-arousal negative (LAN) affect – within the leisure sphere. Telephone survey data were collected from 583 Hong Kong Chinese employees. Structural equation modelling indicated that (1) autonomy, competence and relatedness need satisfaction were all significantly and positively correlated with HAP affect; (2) autonomy need satisfaction alone was significantly and positively related with LAP affect; and (3) autonomy need satisfaction alone was significantly and negatively associated with both LAN and HAN affects. Taken together, these results suggest that fulfilment of basic psychological needs, especially the need for autonomy, contributes to people’s overall affective well-being, within the leisure sphere. We discuss our findings in terms of two frameworks: basic psychological needs theory and the DRAMMA leisure model. We also explicate the practical implications of our study and provide future research recommendations.     

Women,shopping and leisure

This paper examines the social antecedents, occupational experiences and problems currently challenging executive managers within the public leisure services in Britain. It describes those processes involved in an historic development which has seen leisure managers moving from the margin to occupy a more central role in local government, and explores the major dificulties currently challenging senior managers who have experienced this process of status transition, including: power conflicts with established professional groups, difficulties associated with one's role, mission, occupational identity and philosophy. All of these problems are addressed by different types of managers in different ways. The paper identifies four characteristic types of managerial executive in leisure: ‘The Traditionalist’, ‘The Sports Centred’. ‘The Generalist Graduate’ and ‘The Second Chance Careerist’, and relates each of these to different class, cultural, gender and occupational experiences. It suggests that, whereas in the past, work in leisure management was conventionally perceived to be a low status and marginal occupational largely colonized by the aspirant working class, this pattern is now rapidly changing. A new type of confident middle class generalist graduate who extols the virtues of ‘the amateur’ and ‘the good all-rounder’ is rapidly colonizing elite roles in leisure management. These people provide a new cohort of leadership which will face both the professional and social problems challenging the public leisure services in the 1990s.     

Creativity,self-expression and leisure

The links between creativity, self-expression and leisure practices are underexplored within leisure literature. Despite research that documents the centrality of leisure as a worked-at process of self-actualisation and self-identity, the practice of leisure is still predominately viewed as one of consumption rather than production and of passivity rather than creativity. This paper, supported by empirical evidence through qualitative research into the lives of users of the leisure spaces of the ‘provincial bohemia’ of the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle upon Tyne, argues that there is a strong component of creativity in this group’s leisure activity. This component, we argue, has, in recent years, become more important for ‘aesthetic-reflexive’ social actors in particular, as acts of self-authored and individual-expressive creativity have become more central to economic production, and to social identity. The rise in creative leisure is strongly linked to the valorisation of the romantic-artistic ethic of inalienable creative self-expression and the rejection of mass and putatively passive forms of leisure consumption common within previous Fordist modes of economic production and social ordering.     

Race,gender, and leisure benefits

This study investigated the relationship between race, gender, and 7 leisure benefits that are based on a Benefits Approach to Leisure (BAL) framework. A random sample of 47 blocks from a southern metropolitan census tract composed of racially integrated middle‐class neighborhoods yielded 99 African American and 107 European American households who rated statements representing 7 leisure benefits on a Likert‐type scale. Using 2‐tailed t tests, with an F (folded) statistic to test for equality of the 2 variances, significant differences (p < .05) between middle‐class African Americans and middle‐class European Americans were found on 4 of 7 leisure benefit scales (57%): relaxation, diversion, self‐expression, and social interaction. When gender was considered, African American and European American middle‐class men differed significantly (p < .05) on relaxation and self‐expression scales, whereas middle‐class women differed significantly (p < .05) on social interaction and self‐esteem scales. The 7 leisure benefit areas were ranked according to perceived importance; a strong association (R = .86, p < .05) was shown between the racial groups. Gender showed considerable effect on the ranking of preferred leisure benefits among middle‐class African Americans but was of limited value when comparing middle‐class European American rankings.     

Rojek,the sociological imagination and leisure

This article traces the historical development of Chris Rojek's writing and documents his distinctive contribution to contemporary debates about postmodern culture. Rojek has consistently sought to develop a coherent sociology of leisure and has sought to apply his sociological imagination to develop leisure studies as a field of study. However, there seems to be an ambivalence or reluctance to engage with Rojek's work on leisure theory. From the outset, his work is both critical and subversive as he challenges ‘conventional wisdom’, which associates leisure with free time and freedom. He argues that both concepts need to be contextualized and any quest for a universal theory of leisure is both illusory and idealistic - one cannot dislocate free time or quality of experience from the social and historical context in which it occurs. Rojek also takes to task critical paradigms of feminism and cultural studies, whilst favouring the contribution that postmodern perspectives can make to understanding leisure practices. The article traces the development of his ideas theorising about leisure by reviewing his seminal texts, Capitalism and Social Theory (1985), Ways of Escape (1993), Decentring Leisure (1995) and most recently, Leisure and Culture (2000).     

Paternalism,professionalism and public sector leisure provision: the boundaries of a leisure profession

A significant body of research has emerged concerning issues of the professionalization of, and professionalism in, leisure. Much of this literature has focused on the political and/or technical dimensions of the leisure professional and the customers or citizens they purport to serve. In this paper we offer a moral philosophical account of the relations between the paradigmatic leisure profession, leisure management, and its clientele. An account of the varieties of paternalism is developed and a more specific picture of professional paternalism in the context of leisure professions is articulated, while stopping short of providing a justification for the autonomy – respectful and disrespectful forms that they can take. We characterize the relations as necessarily involving moral authority, and not merely technical expertise, as is commonly supposed.     

Baudrillard and leisure

Jean Baudrillard is widely recognized as one of the leading lights of post-modernist theory. Yet students of leisure appear to be either unaware or oddly impervious to the significance of his ideas for their work. This is surprising for Baudrillard's ideas are both relevant and challenging to the theoretical and applied sides of leisure studies. This paper attempts to pinpoint the relevance of Baudrillard's ideas and present a critical evaluation of them. His place in the tradition of leisure theory is discussed, and the conclusion points to the practical application of Baudrillard's arguments in exploring the simulated leisure environment.     

The biochemistry behind human behavior: Implications for leisure sciences and services

Abstract

This research reflection explores the relationship between biochemistry and human behavior. More specifically, it examines the implications associated with two neural pathways in the brain, one leading to pleasure and the other to contentment. After describing how the two pathways work and where they lead, we turn the reader’s attention to the implications for leisure sciences and services, including the way we think about leisure behavior, how we plan for it, and, ultimately, how we might rethink the leisure service profession’s obligation in light of its classical philosophical foundations.     

The future of leisure: making leisure work

The general subject of this paper is the future of leisure. It is suggested that the existing forecasts over the last forty years regarding the future of leisure - either leisure's abundance or its scarcity - depend upon taking leisure and work either segmentally or even as polar opposites. It is argued that recovering a basic idea found in Samuel Smiles' book Self-Help (1859) could go a long way toward establishing an identity between real work and real leisure. Smiles is typically read as a mere lyric poet and as a writer in part responsible for projecting upon his people horrid centres of industrialism by way of promoting what is historically referred to as the Victorian work ethic. But Smiles can be read differently. In this paper it is argued that Smiles' interpretation of self-help is so inclusive as to be useful in understanding the nature and significance of the future of leisure if, that is, we take leisure to be work.     

Labour,leisure and liminality: disciplinary work at play

Academics rank high among those groups of people who derive their sense of personal identity and meaning from their particular form of employment. Yet, part of what being a university academic means – and part of the satisfaction that academics obtain from their jobs – lies in being paid to engage in ‘absorbing play.’ This essay explores some ways in which concepts of work and play, labour and leisure, are at issue in the organisation, imagination and experience of professorial employment in general, and how, in particular, such concepts informed and were negotiated in the interdisciplinary space of the 2006‐7 Humanities Institute seminar at the University of Texas at Austin out of which the papers collected in this special issue emerged.     

Women,work, and leisure: The days of our lives

Abstract

Utilizing a qualitative research methodology, this study attempts to identify and understand the experience of enjoyment (or lack thereof) within the work and nonwork (i.e., family, leisure) spheres of working women. Specifically, the study attempts to identify the contexts in which professional and blue‐collar women experience flow (Csikszentmihalyi 1975) or its antithesis (i.e., anti‐flow) which can be characterized by boredom, frustration, and anxiety. In addition, the study examines the nature and the meanings of these experiences within the work/nonwork lives of these women.

Findings of this study suggest that professional women tended to experience flow in both work and nonworking settings, while the blue‐collar women tended to experience flow only in their nonwork (i.e., home, leisure) spheres. Both groups experienced some degree of anti‐flow when they performed tasks which were repetitious, tedious, and simplistic, regardless of the setting. While such tasks constituted a very small part of the professional women's jobs, they formed the major part of the blue‐collar women's jobs.     

Editorial: leisure and wellbeing

A ‘new’ system of accrediting outdoor programmes, which is similar to regimes in the USA, Australia and England, has been developed in New Zealand. The accreditation system is based on the audit and accreditation of instructors and operators in the outdoors and has grown out of increasing concerns about safety. Initially, the system appears to be appealing, encouraging operators to be ‘transparent’ in their safety operations. Yet the discourses that underpin accreditation are complex and problematic. They are indicative of power relations that undermine operators' and instructors' experiences and abilities in the face of a socially constructed ‘need’ for audit. In this paper, we analyse the discourses that inform the creation and development of the audit and accreditation system, outlining some of its shortcomings and offering some alternatives to the dominant discourses that underpin it.     

Measurement specification and leisure satisfaction

Abstract

A comparison of specific expressive and instrumental indicators of satisfaction were compared against general measures of satisfaction. Research was conducted to explore specific indicators of satisfaction which included expressive measures representing major intrinsic goals of a leisure activity and instrumental measures which serve to facilitate those goals. Expressive indicators of satisfaction involving core experiences were most salient in explaining variance in general measures of satisfaction. Specific instrumental indicators of satisfaction did not contribute significantly to explaining variance in general measures of satisfaction.