Work and Leisure

Postmodern work and leisure 53in the workplace. Parker (1983), whose approach was clearly influenced byWilensky, devised a threefold typology of work and leisure:• extension: work and leisure are not clearly demarcated, and thebehavioural regime of voluntarily chosen activity resembles the regimeof the workplace• opposition: work and leisure are sharply divided, and the behaviouralregime of voluntarily chosen activity is diametrically opposed to workexperience• neutrality: no causal relations between work and leisure are identified.For many feminists, the debate about the relationship between paid work andleisure is beside the point. Instead they focus upon the second issue, thequestion of redistributive justice. Two further issues have emerged from this.First, feminists have demonstrated that women have been systematicallyexcluded from paid employment, with the resultant negative implications foroccupational and state contributory benefits. Second, they have explored howwomen’s access to leisure time and leisure space is constrained. However,while important points about redistributive justice and the sexual division ofpower in work and leisure have emerged from this debate, the exploration ofwhat a ‘post-work’ society might look like is substantially underdeveloped(Deem 1986; Shaw 1994).On the whole, with one or two exceptions, notably Dumazedier (1967) andVeal (1987), students of leisure studies have not participated in conceptualisingsocietal-wide alternatives to existing work–leisure patterns. Althoughdebate and research in the field often reinforce the presupposition that thecoming of the ‘leisure society’ is inevitable, the institutional form, fiscalarrangements, citizenship rights and obligations that will obtain in such anew social form remain substantially under-theorised. Indeed, the mainimpetus for clarification in this area has come, not from leisure studies, butfrom students of trends in the capitalist labour market.The ‘overwork’ thesis: Juliet SchorJuliet Schor’s (1991) important contribution to the debate on work and leisurecertainly supports traditional feminist concerns. Her study demonstratesthe perpetuation of obstacles to the full employment of women in the labourmarket and demands redistributive justice in the existing division of workand leisure between the sexes. However, it is written from the presumptionthat the character of the labour market has changed in crucial ways, makingtraditional feminist demands for sexual equality in work and leisure toolimited. According to Schor the real problem confronting Western society isnot realising full employment for both sexes, but coping with the problems ofoverwork.