Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 21, 1994 TAG: 9408120021
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Dallas Morning News
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Leisure, though often thought of simply as free time, is the foundation of a large segment of the U.S. economy. It almost equals the $311 billion gross national product of Australia, according to the most recent available figures. Its study occupies the working hours of a large body of specialists in business and on campus.
``It is commonly believed that happiness depends on leisure,'' Aristotle wrote.
Yet experts are often deeply divided about even the most basic aspects of leisure time: How much we have and how we use it.
``What I tell my students,'' said Dr. Charles Rotman of Babson College, "is that leisure is what you're doing when you're not being paid for what you usually do.''
His definition represents a rough consensus among experts. They agree on almost nothing else.
Often the discussion begins with the Use of Time Project, conducted by the Survey Research Center at the University of Maryland from 1965 to 1985. The study concluded that Americans in 1985 had on average about 40 hours a week of leisure time, a gain of five hours over the previous 20 years.
Juliet Schor, senior lecturer on economics at Harvard University, doesn't believe it. Some studies also conflict.
``People at all levels are working longer hours. Managers are working longer, but some industries have their employees on permanent overtime,'' Schor said.
She believes the Maryland study was based on an unrepresentative 1965 sample and noted that the results include part-time workers who would gladly trade leisure time for a 40-hour-a-week job. Other studies have shown that the number of part-time workers holding multiple jobs has increased, she said.
She also contends that the overtime worked by hourly employees is at an all-time high.
By her calculation, Americans work about 163 hours more per year than they did 20 years ago, or about three hours more per week.
In any case, Americans often feel as if they have less free time, according to the University of Maryland study. The study showed that although leisure time had increased over the course of two decades, a third of the population in 1985 said they ``always'' felt rushed. Only a fourth of respondents had felt that way 20 years earlier.
Betty Morton, a decorator from nearby Richardson, Texas, is among those who feel they get about half the vacation time they would like. She said she often feels unable to fully enjoy the two weeks she takes.
``You can't take off because when you come back you have to start your business up all over again,'' she said.
Her solution is to take off a few days at a time, as do many others. She said she would prefer to take vacation time all at once.
``You can get rested up after a few days, but you come back and you feel hassled again,'' she said. ``It's not like having four weeks.''
In any case, Americans have come to value what time they have. An ongoing survey begun by the Roper Organization in 1975 initially found that 48 percent of respondents said work was more important to them than leisure, compared with 36 percent who said leisure was more important. The question was repeated each year, and the percentages remained steady until the late 1980s. Then, attitudes switched.
By 1993, 42 percent said they valued leisure more than work, compared with 31 percent who said work was more important.
Leisure may be free, but it is not cheap. According to the American Recreation Coalition, annual sales of recreation goods and services exceeded $300 billion in 1990, the most recent figures available. That figure was growing faster than the total gross national product of the United States.
Derrick Crandall, coalition president, said the biggest trend in the leisure industry is electronic gadgetry, which can render expensive even the simplest of life's pleasures.
Critics such as Schor argue that the boom in recreation spending doesn't indicate an increase in free time, but merely means busy people are trying to substitute consumerism for true leisure.
And it gets to the stickiest of issues: Are some forms of leisure superior to others?
``Leisure, if it's going to be any good, has to have the same intensity that we bring to the best of our work. If people need rest, let them rest,'' said Gerald Fain, professor of education at Boston University. ``They need pleasure. I'm not against pleasure, but don't confuse it with leisure.''
He criticized the ``passive enjoyment of mass-marketed entertainment,'' typified by watching television, as ``indistinguishable from taking drugs.'' True leisure requires an active engagement of the intellect and senses, he said. Its goal is fulfillment, not gratification.
Peter Stearns, dean of humanities and social science at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, is easier on the passive fan.
``I think it's hard to say this [passive spectatorship] is bad. If a person is maximizing escapism, if that's all they're doing with their leisure time, then that is an unfortunate life. But if they work hard and take some time off and do nothing, it's not a bad thing,'' he said.
Stearns takes the middle ground in the debate over whether leisure time is increasing or decreasing. The question may be hard to answer, he said, because the line between work and play is not so finely wrought as it once was.
This is also the opinion of Richard Peterson, professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University, who noted that innovations such as flextime and mobile telephones have blurred the once-sharp distinctions between work and leisure time.
``In an earlier time, you left the office and closed the door and people couldn't get to you. Now the boundaries are more permeable, and there are people who feel they can never get away from their jobs,'' he said.
``The idea of strict separation of work and leisure is a product of the Industrial Revolution and the American work mentality,'' said Stearns. ``In traditional societies, people did things at work that we would think of as leisure. People sang, they took naps, they drank.''
Still, the idea that certain times should be set aside for leisure has prevailed in all societies, according to Witold Rybczynski, author of ``Waiting for the Weekend,'' a book that examines the history and nature of leisure.
Americans, he wrote, are accorded about 130 leisure days per year - a figure close to the historical mean.
``The fact that periodic days of rest have existed throughout history suggests that they might be the result of a physiological imperative ... analogous to the body's requirement for a certain number of regenerative hours of sleep or for a given amount of food and water,'' Rybczynski wrote.
by CNB