Wives' Use of Time in Leisure

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to, describe the allocation of wives' time to leisure, and to contribute to a more complete understanding of the various factors which affect wives' time spent in leisure in a variety of interaction patterns with other family members. Time use data were collected from 105 randomly selected, rural, two-parent, twochild · families. The sample was stratified by age of the youngest child. Wives were asked to recall and record time allocated to leisure activities by all family members during the previous week. Stepwise multiple regression was utilized to test the relationship between wives' time in leisure in five interaction patterns with family members and a number of demographic, economic, and sociological variables. Descriptive results of the study indicated that the mean time allocation of wives to all leisure activities in all interaction patterns with family members was 50 hours and 6 minutes weekly, or seven hours and nine minutes a day. An examination of means by wives' interaction patterns with family members indicated that wives sperit 21 hours and 18 minutes of leisure alone, 11 hours and 18 minutes with husbands, six hours and 36 minutes with one or more children, and eight hours and 30 -minutes with the entire family during the week. The stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that there was a statistically significant negative relationship between the age of the youngest child and wives' total time in leisure, wives' time with husbands, and wives' time with one or more children. This finding was contrary to other studies that have i~dicated a reduction in wives' time in leisure is associated with younger or preschool ch~ldren. G A statistically significant positive relationship was found between wives' feminism scores and their total time in leisure, time with husbands, and with one or more children. There was no statistically significant relationship indicated between wives' feminism scores and leisure time alone or with the entire family. Wives' time in leisure was not affected by husbands' attitudes toward feminism. A strong positive relationship was found between hours of husbands' labor force participation and wives' leisure alone. Hours of husbands' labor force participation did not affect wives' leisure in interaction with other family members. None of the independent variables tested affected the leisure time of the entire family. The major conclusion of this study was that wives' leisure time allocations are influenced by a variety of factors other than the traditionally measured demographic relationships. Because leisure usually occurs within the context of the family, attitudes and perceptions of individual family members merit future consideration. The identification and inclusion of variables that may be related to leisure choices and behavior but have not been examined is extremely vital in order to improve the significance of future research. The author suggested that the development and testing of more accurate methodological techniques of gathering time use data as well as the utilization of larger and more representative samples is necessary in order to improve the statistical accuracy of future studies.