Work and Leisure

8 John T. Haworth and A. J Vealwith wider social, cultural and economic issues and processes, the chapters inPart I suggest that this is no longer the case. In fact, it can be said that, whileit has been more extensively studied and become more fully understood, thephenomenon of leisure has been healthily ‘decentred’ (Rojek 1995).Part II Quality of life and work and leisureThe chapters in the second part of the book bridge traditional and newapproaches to the study of well-being and quality of life. They address therelationship between work and leisure patterns and time-pressure and stress;stress among working parents; work and leisure and the concept of wellbeing;the reciprocal relationship between leisure and health; and seriousleisure, volunteerism and the quality of life.In Chapter 7, on ‘Work, leisure, time-pressure and stress’, Jiri Zuzaneknotes that the questions of whether people living in modern societies areworking longer or shorter hours, or have gained or lost free time, and theimplications of any such trends, have been at the centre of sociological, politicaland economic discussion since the 1930s. The analyses of Canadian timeusetrends suggest that, for the employed part of the population, the totalcombined paid and unpaid workload has been increasing since the early1980s. However, in the competition for time triggered by higher workloads,employed Canadians have sacrificed time spent on personal needs and possiblyeducation rather than their leisure pursuits. Rather than involvingdiscretionary time, feelings of time-pressure seem to be primarily rooted incompetition among various forms of contracted and committed time, that ispaid work, family obligations and, possibly, voluntary work. Time-use datapoint to society becoming increasingly polarised along time-pressure lines,with some groups exposed to considerably higher levels of time pressure thanothers. The length of paid and unpaid working hours is an important, but notthe sole, determinant of subjectively felt time-pressure. Lack of choice, interest,and control over working and non-working time, and a rapid change-overof activities contribute significantly to elevated levels of ‘time crunch’ inmodern societies. Zuzanek notes the growing awareness that individual copingstrategies and lifestyle modifications alone are not sufficient to offset thenegative impacts of time-pressure and psychological stress on health. Manypressures faced by people in modern societies are social or structural. Theyare embedded in the competitive demands of globalised economies, changingworkplace environments, value orientations emphasising rapid material gainsand conformity with standardised and fast forms of expression prevalent inpopular culture. Yet, Zuzanek argues, technological and economic progressshould and need not clash with the goals of social solidarity, cohesion andhuman development.In Chapter 8 Barbara Schneider, Alisa Ainbinder and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyiexamine stress among working parents using the Experience