Who has it best? Women's labor force participation, perceptions of leisure and constraints to enjoyment of leisure.

IntroductionThe ideological underpinnings of the post-World War II period in Britain and North America has been described as "reconstructed liberalism," and central to this ideology was "the claim that the enormous expansion and transformation of leisure entailed new spaces for freedom and individuality. Leisure was seized upon to reaffirm the link between capitalism, freedom and the good society" (Seidman, 1987, p. 72). This optimism led to the emergence of leisure studies as an interdisciplinary field and research domain in American, Canadian and British universities in the 1960s and 1970s. Leisure was generally conceived of as free time and freely chosen activity. For the individual, the notion of "free time" meant time not obligated to others in one's personal and institutional membership groups. Roberts (1970, p. 6) provides an explicit mainstream definition of what constitutes "leisure" or "free time":Leisure time can be defined as time that is nor obligated, and leisure activities can be defined as activities that are non-obligatory. At work, a man's time is not his own and his behavior is not responsive purely to his own whims. Outside work, there are certain duties that men are obliged, either by custom or law, to fulfil, such as obligations that an individual has towards his family. When these obligations have been met, a man has 'free time' in which his behavior is dictated by his own will and preferences, and it is here that leisure is found.The relationship between work time and activity and leisure time and activity has been a major area of empirical research in leisure studies (c.f., Parker, 1971, 1976, 1985; Salaman, 1974; Gerstl 1963) These studies asked men about their attitudes to work, whether or not they had work-based friendships, and determined whether their work is similar to, or different from their after-work pursuits. These studies did not ask men about their family lives, except in an implicit way by considering the family as part of the leisure realm. In Gerstl's study of the relationship between occupational and leisure pursuits of admen, dentists and professors, time spent with children and time spent in household chores were considered part of "the realm of leisure (in terms of range, from family outward into community)" (Gerstl, 1963, p. 148). The work done by men in the home is non-obligatory and constitutes a preference in their use of their "free time" or leisure.Few would call all the work women do in household maintenance and childcare "leisure". Time devoted to housekeeping and childcare is usually not "leisure" but rather constitutes a compulsory (obligatory) use of non-paid work time, although there is a certain amount of "elasticity" here. Some housekeeping tasks are taken on for the gratifications entailed in doing them (e.g., planting bulbs, making cushions) and childcare has its inherent and pleasurable rewards. However, much of the social reproduction labour of women is obligatory and implicated in the care of other family members, and women's productive labour is also configured around domestic obligations (c.f., Chambers, 1986; Fox, 1992; Henderson, 1989; Henderson & Allen, 1991). While the mainstream concept of leisure as time or activity often rests on the assumption of the primacy of male work roles in full time employment, the question of work and leisure becomes more complex for the study of women workers. Household and familial constraints must figure into an analysis of work and leisure experiences of women and, increasingly, men as well. To that end, the present research on the effects of labor force participation (i.e., one's status as full time or part time employee, or full time homemaker) on women's experience of leisure, also examines the impact of marital status and presence of children in the home. Age, income and education are included in the analysis as well. The general research question approached here is whether or not labor force participation (full time, part time, or homemaker) itself significantly affects women's leisure meaning systems, their experience of leisure and entails constraints to their enjoyment of leisure. …