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Leisure, Tastes and Gender in Britain:

Changes from the 1960s to the 1990s*

Tally Katz-Gerro and Oriel Sullivan

University of Haifa Ben-Gurion University

September 2002

* Paper under review please do not quote without permission. Please address

correspondence to Tally Katz-Gerro, Department of Sociology and Anthropology,

University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel, [email protected] or Oriel Sullivan,

Department of Behavioral Sciences, Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel,

[email protected]

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Leisure, Tastes and Gender in Britain:

Changes from the 1960s to the 1990s

Abstract

This paper discusses various conceptual ways of linking gender, leisure and tastes

and offers a cross-time analysis of gender differences in the time allocated to different

leisure activities in Britain. We askwhether men and women have similar leisure

participation patterns over time and whether we can identify changes in the relative

distribution of leisure activities between men and women. We discuss Bourdieus theory

of distinction and Simmels trickle down theory as possible explanations of differences in

gender trends over time. We find some trends in participation which may be described in

terms of Simmels trickle-down theory (for example, increasing participation in sports

activities among women), some which support Bourdieus theory of distinction (for

example, mens participation in electronic media) and some which cannot adequately be

described by either.

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Introduction

This paper discusses various conceptual ways of linking gender, leisure and tastes

and offers a longitudinal analysis of gender differences in the time allocated to different

leisure activities in Britain. The consumption of cultural products and cultural activities

such as leisure reflects tastes that embody symbolic abilities and resources. For the

purposes of empirical testing our approach therefore regards tastes as being displayed

through participation in different fields of practice (Harvey et al. 2001), in this case

participation in specific leisure activities. Leisure activities in our analysisare drawn from

the areas of entertainment, socializing, travel, sport and home-based leisure, representing

both highbrow and popular leisure tastes.

The relationship between gender on the one hand and leisure and tastes on the

other exemplifies the way specific behaviors are given gendered meanings. Leisure

provides men and women with a hierarchical structure of opportunity as well as an

effective structure of identity and cohesion. In this way, diverse social structures

incorporate gender values and convey gender advantages. Understanding the way mens

and womens leisure changes over time is therefore important because it reflects the

changing gender distribution of cultural resources. We ask whether men and women

have similar leisure participation patterns and whether we can identify changes in the

relative distribution of leisure activities between men and women over time. For example,

we ask whether men tend to participate in out-of-home activities more than women,

whether men tend to engage in electronic leisure more than women, whether men

participate in social leisure less than women and if and how these differences have

changed over time. We further ask, what is the significance of trends that are identified in

terms of existing theories of leisure and gender. Manytheories emphasize the

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consequences of gender differences in leisure over time but do not empirically investigate

trends.

We employ British data on time-use, which give details of peoples daily

activities, collected over the period from the 1960s through to the 1990s to discuss some

central questions in the literature on the distribution of consumption activities. These

data enable a longitudinal perspective on changes in cultural consumption orientations

and on similarities and differences in consumption behavior.

Cultural Consumption and Gender

Sociological literature increasingly emphasizes the importance of cultural

consumption and tastes in shaping the contours of social locations and social relations

(Bourdieu 1984; Slater 1997). In the context of growing political and economic

significance of consumerism and consumer culture, it is argued that more emphasis

should be given to the cultural rather than the economic construction of social groups.

Thus, instead of an emphasis on social analysis based on income, occupation, or

education there is an increasing emphasis on cultural criteria such as consumption

behavior and taste patterns. Cultural preferences and lifestyles are initiators and

sustainers of identities and group boundaries (Warde 1994; Lamont and Molnar 2001);

they mark and maintain social distinction (Peterson and Kern 1996; Katz-Gerro 1999);

they reflect and create symbols and symbolic meanings (Bryson 1996); and they are

sources of new conflicts and new social movements (Schor 1999). Cultural tribes

(Mafessoli 1996) crystallize on the basis of lifestyles as a new form of sociality in which

both individuals and groups objectify themselves and their values through their

consumption acts. The shift from a social system based primarily on production to one

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based primarily on consumption means that individuals are spending more time on leisure

activities. Consequently, decisions surrounding the allocation of resources such as money

or time spent on leisure, and the content of that leisure (in terms of which activities

people do and who participates in them) are becoming more central to the dynamics of

identity, exclusion, and solidarity.

Consumption, taste and leisure are closely linked in that together they comprise

the concept of lifestyle. Common lifestyle indicators in the literature include leisure

pastimes, cultural consumption, and cultural tastes related to clothing, music, reading,

and choice of holidays (Featherstone 1991). It is widely acknowledged that consumption

and tastes are strongly gendered. Women and men differ in leisure activities, leisure

preferences, time allocated for leisure, cultural tastes, household division of

consumption, and household consumption decision making (Costa 1994; Firat 1991;

Grazia and Furlough 1996; Horowitz and Mohun 1998; Lubar 1998; MacDonald 1995).

Gender differences in consumption have been attributed to various factors. First, with the

growth in the gender division of labor, production came to be associated with the public

domain and with men while the private domain came to be associated with womens

'non-work' activities such as recreation, leisure, family life and consumption (Firat 1991).

Second, women are expected to be in charge of status work in the family and therefore

they come to dominate cultural and material consumption in the household (Collins

1988, 1992). They are more involved than men in the realm of symbolic status emulation

and status presentation, such as in identifying status with the appearance of the

household. For example, in the U.S., women are often responsible for consumption

activities - shopping, preparing items for consumption, gift buying and disposal of used

items.Typically, American men are more responsible for the purchase of certain types of

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goods such as cars and electrical appliances than are women. Some of this gender

dichotomization is currently breaking down but much of it remains resilient to change

(Costa 1994). Thirdly, since women are regarded as second earners, their marginal place

in the familys social security system leaves their free time mostly for nurturing their

family, taking care of the home, or spending their leisure time indoors. This means that

womens disposable time seeps away invisibly into the caring functions they perform for

family members (Pasers 1994).

The literature on gender differences in consumption provides equivocal findings

since accounts of gender differences in cultural consumption and leisure activities, point

in different directions, both empirically and theoretically. First, current research reports

that men and women differ in their leisure activities and cultural tastes (Shaw 1985;

Bryson 1996; Netz 1996; Bihagen and Katz-Gerro 2000; Katz-Gerro 2002), but also that

gender differences in those realms are insignificant (Shelton 1992; Robinson and Godbey

1997; Bittman and Wajcman 2000). Second, although women on average have more

leisure time than men (who are constrained by the time devoted to paid work), womens

leisure time is constrained by their housework responsibilities,their lesser command of

material resources andthe lack of legitimacy for women to pursue their own leisure

interests. In other words, leisure has contradictory aspects in womens and mens lives

and can have different outcomes both for individual women and for structural relations

between men and women in society (Shaw 1985). Third, a variety of socio-demographic

determinants and covariates have been shown to affect men and womens leisure both

similarly and differently. Such inconsistencies cause problems for the development of a

consistent body of theory and are attributable to the use of different measures of

covariates in different countries and different decades (Thrane 2000).

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Although there have been interesting developments in the discussion of cultural

consumption, there has been little large-scale empirical analysis on longitudinal

differences and trends in categories of cultural consumption, cultural tastes, and lifestyle

preferences. Scholars have neglected a specifically comparative point of view on

differences in cultural consumption that stem from different class positions, gender

locations and politico-economic regimes.

Following findings in the literature, and in order best to address some of the

existing theoretical debates about the relationship between cultural consumption and

socio-demographic variables, we choose to focus on a set of activities representing the

different fields of cultural consumption and a set of factors that are known to be

associated with cultural consumption patterns. From existing research at the macro-level,

we know that differences in leisure-time/consumption activities are related to factors

such as class, gender, education level, occupation, and income (DiMaggio1982;

Aschaffenburg 1995; Peterson and Kern 1996; Bryson 1996). In the analyses that follow

we mainly focus on issues of class and gender because of the substantial existing

theoretical literature in these areas, which permits the possibility of testing specific

hypotheses. However,the effects of other socio-economic and demographic variables

such as education, family structure, age, and income are also included in the analyses.

Below, we briefly review the literature on each of these factors and discuss the

main theoretical issues that call for attention.

Leisure, Taste and Gender

While gender is often present in models that explain the distribution of cultural

consumption, the relationship between gender and consumption has not always received

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full attention. Additionally, much of the writing about womens experience of timehas

been philosophical in orientation and, insofar as it has drawn on empirical research, has

been of a qualitative nature based on small-scale studies (Bittman and Wajcman 2000).

In addition, as referred to above, accounts of gender differences in cultural

consumption and leisure activities point in different directions, both empirically and

theoretically. Current research reports that men and women differ in their leisure

activities and cultural tastes (Shaw 1985; Bryson 1996; Netz 1996; Bihagen and Katz-

Gerro 2000; Katz-Gerro 2002) but also that gender differences in those realms are

insignificant (Shelton 1992; Bittman and Wajcman 2000). Theories that address gender

differences in leisure and consumption range from emphasizing socialization, gender

roles, and the link between gender and status (Collins 1988, 1992), to emphasizing

division of labor in the household, relative resources, and constraints of time,

opportunities and legitimacy (Green et al. 1990; Shaw 1994; Samuel et al.1996)1.

Leisure, Taste, and Class

A strong tradition in sociology emphasizes the link between cultural lifestyle and

economic class position. In the Weberian tradition, class arises in the sphere of

consumption no less than in that of production and social intercourse within class barriers

is promoted by the similarity of manners and habits of life (Weber 1946).

In his influential work, Bourdieu uses the concepts of economic and cultural

capital to describe a model of class structure and class reproduction (1984:128-29). He

1 For example, reports from Sweden regarding gender differences in leisure activities show that women spend their

leisure time around the house and in their neighborhood while men may travel to sports arenas and other destinies

at some distance from their home (Linden et al. 1999). Another kind of constraint is access to credit. Credit systems

and banks are less accessible to women because they require a steady income or ownership of property.

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argues that through the mediation of the habitus -- patterns of thought, comprehension,

consumption and lifestyle -- people internalize their class position and express it in

cultural choices that reproduce the very class structure itself. Bourdieu (1984) suggests

that dominant classes have distinct cultural tastes, which they use as both an indicator of

their cultural capital and as a way to maintain their advantage in social, economic, and

cultural arenas.

Highbrow and lowbrow cultural tastes are often analyzed in the context of class

differences in cultural preferences (De Graaf 1991; Aschaffenburg 1995; Spellerberg

1995; Katz-Gerro 2002). The advantages that accompany the consumption of highbrow

culture -- in educational and occupational attainment -- are linked to the fabrication of

solidarity, construction of identity, and practices of exclusion (Lamont 1992). Gender

differences in cultural consumption are often confused with class differences when

gender is considered secondary to class and when differences in consumption patterns

are perceived as a result of occupation, education, or income (Bourdieu 1984).

To address the issues reviewed thus far, we pursue two main directions. First, we

document trends and changes in class and gender patterns of leisure activities over time.

Second, we test various theoretical hypotheses through the investigation of interaction

effects in thevariables affecting leisure activities.

Methods

The Longitudinal Perspective

The longitudinal perspectiveconcerns the collection and analysis of data over

time. Such a perspective isnowadays considered essential if the purpose of the research

is to understand social change. This is so because only longitudinal data permit a

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diachronic analysis, in which the relative timing of events may be established (see

Berthoud 2000). However, large-scale longitudinalempirical research in the area of

leisure and tastes is to date very rare.

There are many types of longitudinal data, ranging from true longitudinal data

recorded for the same people over time to sets of repeated cross-sectional surveys using

the same questionnaire but interviewing different people at each survey. For the purposes

of this paper we will be utilizing a set of repeated cross-sectional studies. The single

cross-sectional study is the form of data that has been the most commonly used in the

social sciences for assessing the determinants of behavior. However, it is now relatively

common for cross-sectional data to be recorded in a succession of surveys over several

points of time, with a new sample on each occasion. Where cross-sectional data are

repeated over time with a high level of consistency between questions, it is possible to

incorporate a time trend into the analysis. The multinational time use diary data archive

has been constructed to enable such analyses (see Sullivan and Gershuny 2001; Gershuny

2000a for descriptions of general trends in time-use from this source).

The Data

We employ time-use data collected in Britain over the period from the 1960s

through to the 1990s. These data include information on the time spent in specific leisure

activities drawn from time-use diaries collected over a full week of activities. The full

database comprises successive time-use diary surveys from a range of developed

countries, which were collected from the 1960s to the 1990s. These surveys have been

standardized to a single format, with a single range of activities, so they form a unique

record of change in individuals use of time in different countries from the 1960s to the

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1990s. Anticipating that this project will include other countries in its next stage, there

are by now a substantial amount of comparative standardized time-use diary data

available from most European and North American countries (see the web site for the

Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex for further details of the multi-

national time-use study: www.iser.essex.ac.uk).

Time-use Diary Methodology

Self-complete time use diaries describe the pattern of the daily activities of

individuals (see Robinson 1985). They tell us about the way in which individuals spend

their time throughout the day expressed assequences of numerical codes representing

the different activities that individuals engage in over the day. These diaries are now a

well-established methodology in the social sciences and have been used to analyze the

use of time at the level of individuals, households and societies. For example, the way

individuals divide their time between work (paid and unpaid); and the amount and use of

leisure time (see, for example, Grazia 1964; Szalai 1972; Berk 1985; Gershuny 1995;

Robinson and Godbey 1997; Gershuny and Sullivan [under review]). Time-use diarydata

are appropriate for documenting differences and trends over time and they have been

shown to bemore accurate than survey questions asking people about theirleisure

participation. Using time-use diary data it is possible to calculate both participation rates

(that is the proportion of people who participate in a particular activity over a specific

period of time) and the average time spent in specific activities.

At the macro level, estimates can be derived of the way in which time is divided

between production and consumption activities within a society (Gershuny 2000a).

Multi-national data of this kind can therefore provide the opportunity to compare the

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way in which time is divided between different activities in different societies. It turns out

that there are well-established cross-national variations in time-use (Szalai 1972; Gronmo

and Lingsom 1986; Gershuny 1993; Robinson and Godbey 1997), which have been

related to factors such as differing regimes of social welfare, differing employment

systems and levels of domestic technology. However, while there is a growing body of

research on the cross-sectional correlates of the use of time in different societies, little is

known about the development of patterns of activity within societies across time.

Existing data shows that changes in patterns of time-use occur over time (for instance,

there has been a general trend towards shorter working hours and longer durations of

leisure - see Gershuny 1993; Robinson and Godbey 1997), but there is little knowledge

about the processes that underpin such change.

Variables

We draw our leisure indicators from the areas of entertainment, socialising,

travel, sport, and home-based leisure activities.

-- Table 1 about here --

A variety of different dimensions of cultural consumption may be distinguished

from within the list of activities available from the time-use data and shown in Table 1.

For example, we can distinguish highbrow from lowbrow cultural activities, indoor from

outdoor leisure activities, and expensive from inexpensive leisure activities.

In order to operationalize the concept of class, we created a standard class

indicator from the class variables available from the time-use diary studies. These

variables included occupationally based definitions of class such as those employed by

national statistical bureaus and socio-economic indices as employed by market research

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organizations. However, it was possible to amalgamate the categories to create a

consistent series from a three-class classification of high, middle and low.

Hypotheses and Questions

In previous research we have established that gender differences in consumption

are not easily reducible to occupational, educational, or other differences (Bihagen and

Katz-Gerro 2000; Katz-Gerro 2002). In the present research we explore possible

theoretical explanations of the features of the gender difference in cultural consumption

that are most appropriately treated using a longitudinal perspective. The first explanation

is that with increasing rates of womens higher educational attainment and participation

in the labor force, more women take part in the dominant highbrow culture. But as more

women participate in highbrow culture, this cultural field is devalued. Following the logic

of Simmels trickle down theory (1904), which holds that subordinate social groups seek

to establish new status claims by adopting the tastes of super-ordinate groups, we can

suggest that women seek to establish new status claims by adopting the consumption

patterns of men.

The second explanation is that men as the dominant gender select and participate

in new areas of leisure in order to maintain their distinction through the creation of new

fields of activity. Distinctive lifestyles are necessary for group identification and are

reinforced in the differentiation and distribution of tastes.

Following these explanations we propose two hypotheses. First, we hypothesize

that with the increase in womens higher education and labor force participation their

consumption tastes become more highbrow and also more varied (to include highbrow as

well as popular, outdoor as well as indoor leisure, expensive and inexpensive activities

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etc.) We will look for evidence that supports Simmels trickle down theory, which

argues that women seek over time to establish new status claims by adopting the

consumption patterns of men. Second, we hypothesize that in order to maintain their

distinction, men adopt new consumption tastes. Rather than maintain those areas of

cultural consumption that women have also come to master, they seek new aspects of

cultural consumption to become competent in, which serve as new areas of gender

distinction.

Results

Figure 1 and Figure 2 show trends in participation rates in leisure activitiesfor men and

women in 1961, 1975, 1987, and 1997. On the vertical axis we have the percentage of men who

participate in a particular activity over the specific week of the diary. For example, we can see

the increase in the proportion of men who watch television from 1961 up to a level of almost a

hundred percent in 1997. The video and computing data pertain only to 1987 and 1997, and we

can see the dramatic increase in participation between these dates.

-- Figure 1 about here --


However, what is shown in Figures 1 and 2 are raw participation rates that do not

control for other changes in the socio-demographic conditions of the population, which

might also be related to patterns of participation in leisure activities. For example,

employed parents of small children might be less likely to spend time in out-of-home

leisure activities such as outings (walks, day trips, museums, galleries) or social eating

(pubs, restaurants).

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Since we are interested in the way gender differences change over time while taking

account of changes in underlying characteristics such as these, we performed multivariate

analyses, which control for the effect of several variables together. Participation rates in the

activities are the variables we are primarily interested in (i.e. the dependent variables). In the

analyses we control for sex, survey year, class, family status, and employment status -- all of

which are known to affect leisure participation (Katz-Gerro 2002). In addition, we include in the

models the interaction effects of sex by survey year and sex by class. The interaction effects

including survey year allow us to determine which activities change over time in a different way

both for men and women (sex by survey year), while the sex by class interaction effect controls

for different patterns of gender participation according to class.

-- Table 2 about here --

Table 2 shows the adjusted mean participation rates in the different activities by

survey and sex from the multivariate analyses while controlling for family status,

employment status, class and a class by sex interaction effect. All these are variables that

have been shown to have an impact on the distribution of leisure time. For example,

research conducted in Scandinavian countries shows that the strongest negative effect on

leisure time was full-time employment followed by school enrolment. Age showed a

curvilinear relationship, and marriage and children reduced the amount of leisure time

all three affecting women more than men (Thrane 2000). In Table 2 therefore it is

possible to see: changes over time in average participation rates in the different leisure

activities (shown by the Survey variable); the differential participation by sex over the

period of the surveys (shown by the Sex variable); and changing patterns of participation

over time according to sex (shown by the Survey*Sex interaction).

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Firstly, then, we see that there are statistically significant trends over time in

participation in leisure activities for all the activities except the two smallest categories:

PC study and PC other. There are also statistically significant differences by sex for the

activities of: outings, social eating, visiting friends, sports, hosting, phone calls, doing

nothing, PC games and PC e-mail. The activities with no statistically significant gender

differences are: going to the cinema, TV, radio, reading, video, PC study, PC paid and

PC other (see discussion below). Only three statistically significant changing patterns of

participation by sex were found, for the activities of sports participation, phone calls and

PC games.


Figure 3 shows only those differences in participation by sex, which were found

to be statistically significant (refer to Table 2 and text above). Over the period covered

by the surveys women participated more in outings, visiting, hosting, phone calls (i.e. in

most of the social activity categories) and in doing nothing. It has been suggested that

women have adominant influence in maintaining communication with family and friends

(Anderson et al. 1999), and previous research has also shown that women spend more

time on the phone than men (Anderson et al. op cit). In our analyses men, however,

participated more than women in social eating, sports, computer games (PC games) and

e-mail (PC e-mail). Among the computing activities these two represent the main leisure

components of PC use. Our findings therefore supportprevious research, which has

shown that it is men who master the new area of home computing2. In the raw means

(shown in Figure 1)women in fact do slightly more studying using a computer but this is

2 Anderson et al. (1999) report that men spend an average of . hours of computer usage at home compared to 5.6

hours for women. Men also appear to access the Internet for longer periods of time than women (2.4 compared to0.2 hours). Men spend 3.4 hours a week playing computer games compared to 1.2 hours for women.

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not significant when controlling for employment status and family status (which means

probably that this applies to a specific group of women, perhaps students).

These differences have been identified before, but our main focus in this paper is

on different trends according to gender. We therefore need to focus on those activities

where there was a survey by sex interaction (i.e. where there are different trends over

time for men and women). Of the nine activities that have different means for men and

women six show no significantly different trends by sex (walks and outings, social eating,

visiting, hosting, doing nothing and e-mail) while three activities have different trends

over time (phone use, sports participation and PC games).


Figure 4 shows the difference in the trends over time for these three activities.

We show absolute differences in participation rates between men and women over time.

The higher the point on the Y-axis the greater the absolute difference is at that point in

time. Looking at the trends in participation enables us to explain what is different about

the trends for men and women for these three activities:

PC games: there was a small difference in participation between men and women in

1987. This difference increased substantially in 1997 due to a much greater increase in

mens participation.

Phone use: up to 1987 the growth in the difference is due to women doing relatively

more phone calls than men. However, in 1997, there is reduction in the difference due to

men catching up. A possible explanation is the increasing technological improvements in

the design of home telephones (cordless phones, fax, e-mail, Minitel, and all sorts of

other buttons and displays) and the introduction of mobile cell phones that were first

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used by businessmen. This goes with the increasing tendency we observe for men to

engage in computing/electronic gadgets.

Sports: we observe a very interesting process here. Mens sports participation has

increased steadily over the period with a particularly strong increase between 1961 and

1975. The increasing difference up to 1975 shown in the graph is the result of mens

increasing relative participation. However, between 1975 and 1987 there was a

substantial catching up effect in womens sports participation and this is where we see

the difference decreasing. This is in line with other research which has shown that overall

the trend over the period 1973 to 1997 was towards greater convergence in mens and

womens sports participation, with a faster growth in participation among women

(Gershuny and Fisher 1999).The difference increases again in 1997 because whereas

mens participation continued to increase womens participation showed more stability.

The question is, what was significant about the 1980s for womens sports participation in

Britain? While there is no direct evidence, it is the case that this period coincided with

the huge growth in aerobics activities among women.

We decided to look in more detail at the new electronic technologies because this

is an area in which we clearly observe mens distinction being formed. If this is indeed an

area claimed by men does it mean that they substitute computing time for time spent in

other activities that are no longer differentiated strongly by gender?



Figure 5 and Figure 6 show overall mean time in minutes per week spent in several

activities for those who do and dont do computing. The range is from zero to as many minutes a

week as people do. We then selected a range of activities for which there is no significant sex

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difference in participation. Among these, TV and video represent alternative electronic media

activities in the home. Hobbies and doing nothing represent other non-electronic alternative in-

home activities. Finally, from the out-of-home activities we chose cinema (for which there has

been a sharp decline in participation for both men and women over time Gershuny and Fisher

1999) to see if one of the possible effects was a time substitution with computing.

What the figures show is that men who do computing spend less time doing

nothing, going to the cinema and watching TV. Women who do computing also spend

less time doing nothing and less time watching TV but, in contrast to men, they spend

more time going to the cinema. For both men and women who do computing, time spent

watching videos and doing hobbies is actually somewhat greater than for those who do

not do computing. Of course, there are difficulties with interpreting this as a simple

substitution effect. In order to be able to do that we would need to take account also of

the activity profiles of individuals both before and after they took up computing. For

example, a true longitudinal analysis by Gershuny has shown that those people who took

up home computing with enthusiasm actually spent more time socializing in subsequent

surveys than other people. As the author notes, this is contrary to the stereotype of

computer nerds (Gershuny 2000b).

Conclusions

Leisure is the focus of contemporary lifestyles, particularly through its association

with social networks, consumption, and cultural identity. Leisure is associated with

citizenship, freedom, and self-fulfillment (Ravenscroft 1996). As such, leisure and

cultural tastes are central to gender relations and gender inequality. In this paper, we

askedwhether men and women have similar leisure participation patterns and whether

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we can identify changes in the relative distribution of leisure activities between men and

women over time.

The overall picture seems to be one of relative stability over the period from

1975 to 1997. The relative pattern of participation over time is different for men and

women in only three out of 17 activities (as indicated by the survey by sex interaction).

For most activities, then, the relative pattern is similar for men and women over time.

For 9 out of 17 of the activities that we investigated, there were clearly

significant over-all differences by sex even when controlling for a range of socio-

demographic variables. Most of the activities for which we observed no gender

differences were in-home activities (radio, TV, video, reading, the work related PC use

activities) plus going to the cinema.

There are two particular theories of change in gender participation in leisure that

seem appropriate to the kind of analysis we were able to perform using these data. The

first of these is Bourdieus theory of distinction in which elite social groups seek to

establish cultural territories that they define, master and in which they regulate access.

The second is Simmels trickle down theory, which describes a process whereby

subordinate groups emulate the consumption patterns of super ordinate groups, who

respond by adopting new patterns.

We drew from these theories when trying to understand the three activities that

show different gender trends over time. With regard to PC games one possible

interpretation relates to a distinction explanation. There is a significant increase in mens

participation over time relative to women in this most popular of PC uses. We think this

may indicate a new realm that over the 1990s became increasingly male-dominated. In

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the multivariate analysis we also found a clear sex differential for PC e-mail (although the

trend over-time was not significantly different for men and women).

We interpret the other two differential trends that we have identified as part of a

modified trickle down process. In regard to participation in sports, we observe a

substantial catching up effect in women sports participation between 1975 and 1987.

The big increase in mens sports participation occurred between 1961 and 1975 while for

women the big increase was between 1975 and 1987.

The recent decrease in the differences in phone use between women and men is

due to an increase in mens participation. We hypothesize that this increase is related to

the new availability of technologically sophisticated phone paraphernalia. This

differentiation cannot be adequately described either in terms of a trickle down theory (in

which subordinate groups emulate super-ordinate groups) or in terms of a distinction

theory (in which men are the dominant group). Perhaps both theories can be part of a

possible explanation of the sex differential in computing media.

Changes in the organization and experience of leisure activities are affected

directly by technological developments. An example is cyberspace communities that

emerge as a new type of leisure space (Bryce 2001). Factors such as gender and class

limit and modify access to leisure technologies in several ways. First, gender and class

are identified as structural leisure constraints through their effect on temporal

constraints, economic constraints, and lack of opportunities or facilities. Second, through

the agents of socialization, traditional expectations of gender and class are transformed,

reproduced and reinforced into the new technological leisure space (Anderson et al.

1999). Our findings offer some support to an approach that sees womens leisure as

offering possibilities for resistance. Leisure is seen as a site of choice and control and

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womens participation in non-traditional activities challenges restrictive social roles

(Shaw 1994).

Moving on to the issue of time substitution for computer use, one interpretation

of our findings is that time spent computing actually substitutes for doing nothing and

watching TV, while it does not substitute for time spent on hobbies and watching videos.

For men specifically computing also appears to substitute for going out to the cinema.

Truly longitudinaldata will be needed to determine whether this is indeed a direct

substitution effect (i.e., people directly substituting their time at the cinema for time

spent computing) or a selection effect related to the types of people who do computing.

Their activity patterns before they took up computing will also require analysis.

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Table 1: Leisure Activity Variables

Variable Name Description

Cinema Going to concerts, theatre, cinema

Outings Walks, outings, etc.

Social eating Eating out, drinking (pubs, restaurant)

Visit friends Visiting or meeting friends or relatives

Sports Sports participation, keeping fit

TV Watching TV/cable/satellite TV

Radio Listening to radio, CD, cassette

Reading Reading newspapers, books, magazines

Hosting Being visited by friends or relatives

Phone calls Receiving telephone calls

Nothing Doing nothing at home

Video Watching video, laser disks

PC games Games

PC email Email

PC study Study at home

PC paid Paid work at home

PC other Other

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Figure 1: Trends in Participation Rates Men

0%

10 %

20 %

30 %

40 %

50 %

60 %

70 %

80 %

90 %

100 %

cinem

a

outin

gs

sociale

ating

visitfri

ends

sports TV

radio

reading

hosting

phon

ecalls

nothing

Vide

o

pcgam

es

pcemail

pcstu

dy

pcpaid

pcoth

er

61

75

87

97

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Figure 2: Trends in Participation Rates Women

0 %

10 %

20 %

30 %

40 %

50 %

60 %

70 %

80 %

90 %

100 %

volu

ntary

cinem

a

outin

gs

socia

leatin

g

visitf

riend

s

sports TV

radio

readin

g

hostin

g

phon

ecalls

nothin

g

Vide

o

pcgam

es

pcemail

pcstu

dy

pcpaid

pcoth

er

61

75

87

97

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Table 2: Adjusted Mean Participation Rates from Analysis of Variance by Survey

Year, Sex, and Survey by Sex interaction (controlling for family status,

employment status, class and class by sex interaction).

Activity Survey Sex Survey*Sex

1975 1987 1997# Men Women

Cinema .70 .43 .22*** .46 .44

Outings .37 .60 .56*** .48 .54*

Social eating .35 .55 .62*** .54 .47*

Visit friends .67 .75 .73* .62 .81***

Sports .16 .25 .28*** .28 .18*** **

TV .95 .99 .99** .98 .97

Radio .51 .34 .31*** .40 .37

Reading .80 .89 .75** .82 .81

Hosting .45 .40 .52** .35 .56***

Phone calls .60 .50 .56* .54 .65*** *

Nothing .71 .94 .32*** .62 .69*

Video NA .18 .27* .25 .20

PC games NA .01 .14*** .10 .05* **

PC e-mail NA .01 .06** .05 .01**

PC study NA .01 .03 .01 .03

PC paid NA .03 .09** .08 .04

PC other NA .01 .003 .01 .01

*p

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Figure 3: Significant Gender Differences in Participation Rates (adjusted means

from multivariate analysis).

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

outings visit

friends

hosting phone

calls

nothing sports social

eating

pc gamespc email

men women

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Figure 4: Trends in Gender Differences in Participation Rates

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

61 75 87 97

sports phone calls pc games

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Figure 5: Time Substitution for Computing (Men 1987, 1997)

020

40

60

80

100

120

140

TVvid

eo

cinem

a

hobb

ies

nothin

g

Minutes

no comp

comp

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Figure 6: Time Substitution for Computing (Women 1987, 1997)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

TVvid

eo

cinem

a

hobb

ies

nothin

g

Minutes

no comp

comp

Documents

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