| dc.description.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. | en_US |
