Time constraints on leisure activities

During the last two decades, the importance of leisure behaviour has occupied the attention of researchers demanding for more study in this area. Among these studies, the examination of leisure activities vis-à-vis the time factor as a result of some empirical contributions has made significant impacts on the conceptual and theoretical understanding of this area.

This paper reports the findings of an urban-based empirical study which assessed the impact of time constraint in particular on leisure activities. The study is undertaken in a Hindu populated City of Kanpur, India the population of which is approximately five million. An interview-administered questionnaire designed for this purpose questioned the extent of constraint due to time on leisure activities on respondents. The respondents were asked about their previous and current leisure activities on the basis of which a comparative structure was designed. The respondent sample size was one hundred fifty, out of which 25 were female and the remaining male. The lower middle and upper middle class were included, depending upon their levels of income.

It was convened that time constraints intervened more frequently on a day-to-day basis in general leisure activities. Further study shows, however, that leisure restrictions are not confined to low-participation individuals, but also effect the more active who are more conscious of being constrained than those who participate less. The study also establishes that time constraint is not the only factor for low leisure participation levels, but has to be seen in context to other constraints also. The limitations of this study have been funding and small sample size.