Who Experiences Leisure Deficits? Mothers' Marital Status and Leisure Time
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12365 |
| Author | Joanna R. Pepin,Liana Sayer,Emily J. Passias |
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
E J. P Independent Researcher
L S University of Maryland∗
J R. P University of Maryland∗∗
Who Experiences Leisure Decits? Mothers’
Marital Status and Leisure Time
The authors used the 2003 to 2012 American
Time Use Survey to examine marital status vari-
ation in mothers’ leisure time. They found that
never-married mothers have more total leisure
but less high-quality leisure when compared
with married mothers. Never-married mothers’
leisure is concentrated in passive and socially
isolated activities that offer fewer social and
health benets. Black single mothers have the
highest amount of socially isolated leisure,
particularly watching television alone. Results
suggest that differences in the context and type
of leisure are salient dimensions of the diver-
gent and stratied life conditions of married,
divorced, and single mothers.
Leisure quantity and quality are measurable
indicators of social integration and physical and
mental health (Craig & Mullan, 2013; Grøntved
Independent Researcher, 7817 Burrwood Street, Dublin,
OH 43016 (epassias@gmail.com).
∗Department of Sociology, 4133 Parren Mitchell
Art-Sociology Building, University of Maryland, College
Park, MD 20742.
∗∗Department of Sociology, 3108 Parren Mitchell
Art-Sociology Building, University of Maryland, College
Park, MD 20742.
This article was edited by Jennifer Glass.
KeyWords: family dynamics, gender,health disparities, mar-
ital relations, mothers.
& Hu, 2011; Stern & Munn, 2010). Studies
of leisure focus primarily on time comparisons
between married mothers and fathers (Bianchi &
Milkie, 2010). Yet, leisure gaps among mothers
are as consequential as leisure time differences
between mothers and fathers. Inadequate social
and physically active leisure is linked with nega-
tive health outcomes (e.g., obesity, cardiovascu-
lar disease), higher stress levels and risk of social
isolation, and less satisfaction with intimate rela-
tionships (Bird & Rieker, 2008; Bittman, 2002;
Grøntved & Hu, 2011; Stern & Munn, 2010;
Verghese et al., 2009).
Attention to the association of leisure and
marital status is warranted for three reasons.
First, marriage should affect leisure time
because having (or not having) a spouse present
inuences demands for household labor, time
allocated to paid work, and thus the supply
of time available for housework, child care,
and leisure (Cooke & Baxter, 2010). Second,
marriage is a gendered institution that activates
cultural expectations about breadwinning and
caregiving expressed through daily patterns
of time use (Gerson, 2011; Risman, 1998).
Third, marriage today is a signal of class status,
differentiating mothers into privileged and dis-
advantaged groups (Cherlin, 2009; McLanahan,
2004). Time advantages of partnered individu-
als, gendering of marriage as an institution, and
race and class compositional differences should
differentiate the quantity and quality of married
and single mothers’ leisure.
Journal of Marriage and Family 79 (August 2017): 1001–1022 1001
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12365
1002 Journal of Marriage and Family
Results from the handful of earlier studies
on marital status associations with leisure are
inconclusive, with conicting reports of leisure
decits for married and for single mothers or
no meaningful differences by marital status
(Bianchi, Robinson, & Milkie, 2006; Bittman
2002; Douthitt, Zick, & McCullough, 1990;
Sanik & Mauldin, 1986; Vernon, 2010). We use
new measures of the type and social context
of leisure and large, nationally representative
data from the 2003 to 2012 American Time Use
Survey (https://www.atusdata.org) to determine
if and how marital status affects leisure. We
consider if associations of marital status and
leisure are mediated by race and education,
characteristics that differentiate pathways into
motherhood and marriage. Our ndings suggest
that differential access to leisure activities is an
underexplored dimension of inequality.
B
Time Availability
The time availability perspective suggests that
leisure time is affected by an individual’s paid
work and household labor time (Coverman,
1985). Vickery’s (1977) time poverty thesis
posits that single mothers should have less
leisure time than married mothers on the basis
of their higher labor force participation and sole
responsibility for housework and child care.
Single mothers’ lower nancial resources also
constrain their ability to outsource household
work (Craig & Baxter, 2014; Gupta, 2007).
In contrast, married mothers’ ability to divide
responsibility for paid and unpaid labor with
a partner should increase time available for
leisure.
Empirical support for the idea that single
mothers have less time available for leisure
is weak. Studies from the 1980s that analyze
small, nonrepresentative data report modest
leisure gaps between single mothers and mar-
ried mothers but nd that differences are mostly
explained by employment hours and the pres-
ence of young children (Douthitt et al., 1990;
Sanik & Mauldin, 1986). Recent research using
nationally representative time diary data offer
competing claims about marital status variation
in mothers’ leisure. Bianchi and colleagues
(2006) report that married and single mothers
have similar amounts of leisure, about 31 hours
per week; in contrast, Vernon(2010) reports that
married women’s leisure is about 30 minutes
higher (per day) than single mothers. Australian
time diary data indicates leisure decits for
married mothers when compared with single
mothers (Bittman, 2002). The inconclusive
ndings result from the analysis of data from
different countries, time points, and sample
restrictions. Bianchi and colleagues (2006)
analyze the National Study of Parents col-
lected in 2000 by the University of Maryland
(n=1,200), whereas Vernon (2010) analyzes
American Time Use Survey data (2003–2008)
for all adults ages 22 to 65, not only parents.
The studies also use different specications
of leisure time (e.g., Vernon includes personal
services such as haircuts and medical care).
The time poverty thesis rests on outdated
assumptions of specialization and time com-
plementarities in marriage that no longer hold
for contemporary marriages. In married cou-
ple families with children, 75% of mothers are
employed, and dual-earner marriages are the
most common work–family arrangement (Krei-
der & Elliott, 2009). Mothers employed full-time
experience the second shift more than other
mothers, and leisure gaps are as large between
full-time and not-employed mothers as they are
between employed mothers and fathers (Milkie,
Raley, & Bianchi, 2009). Consequently, it is
implausible to posit leisure decits for single
mothers when compared with married mothers
given their historical differences in labor force
participation. Research also indicates no sub-
stantial differences by marital status in house-
work or child-care time (Bianchi et al., 2006).
Given single and married mothers’ comparable
workforce participation, housework, and child
care, we hypothesize that time availability will
inuence leisure time in similar ways for mar-
ried and single mothers.
Marriage as a Gendered Institution
In contrast to the time availability thesis, the
gender perspective—which posits that dif-
ferences in time use patterns are a result of
stratication processes, power dynamics, and
socialization—provides plausible reasons why
married mothers may have less leisure, not
more, when compared with single mothers.
Women and men’s allocation of time to domes-
tic or market labor is one of the ways people “do
gender” (West & Zimmerman, 1987, p. 126).
Despite increased employment, married moth-
ers still report doing about twice as much daily
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