Research is needed to better understand how to address these conflicting issues. One intervention that has the potential for helping the unemployed to develop constructive coping skills is leisure counseling. The therapeutic benefits of recreation remain to be explored. The unemployment problem compounded by school leaving, early parenthood, and the lure of drugs and their economic rewards seems overwhelming. The use of qualitative and quantitative methods of research with the unemployed to provide an accurate assessment of how leisure behavior and attitudes change over time is strongly recommended.
Women are different.
Continued research is necessary to determine how they can be reached through comprehensive leisure counseling measures which offer encouragement through programs geared to getting them out of home- based existences and into affordable, fulfilling leisure lifestyles. Research is needed to explore interagency and agency-business cooperative arrangements, utilized to nonexistent with respect to programs for the unemployed. Controlled field experiments should be conducted in order to assess the merits of programs targeted to unemployed clients. Field experiments should be conducted both within and between cities. The field experiments could measure variables as diverse as behavior, attitudes, life satisfaction, and self- esteem.