Gendered and Racialized Education and Relationship Status Effects on Shared and Solo Leisure Time

• In Event: 307 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Paper Session. Family, Work, and Gender

Abstract

How women and men allocate time to leisure activities done alone or done with others is an overlooked indicator of gender equality. Gender differences in the amount of leisure time are tightly intertwined with family status, education, and race-ethnicity. The increased number of adults living alone and class- and race- linked patterns of relationship formation suggest that shared and solo leisure time inequalities may be one mechanism through which family structure affects individual well-being. Leisure studies scholars theorize racial minority experiences of social marginalization and economic disadvantage affect leisure preferences and constrain leisure options. This analysis contributes to closing this gap in knowledge by using data from the 2003-2012 American Time Use Study to investigate how solo and shared leisure time varies by gender, race-ethnicity, family status, and education. I begin by documenting gender and racial-ethnic differences in the total amount of shared and solo leisure time across relationship and educational categories. I then investigate gender, racial-ethnic, educational, and relationship differences in shared and solo cognitive, social, active, civic, and sedentary civic leisure. These types of leisure have distinct implications for well-being and also affect the accumulation of health, cultural, and social capital and the benefits related to participating in the social infrastructure of the world.

Author

• Liana C. Sayer, University of Maryland