Leisure, Tastes and Gender in Britain: Changes from the 1960s to the 1990s*

Tally Katz-Gerro University of Haifa

and

Oriel Sullivan 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* Paper under review please do not quote without permission.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, tkatz@soc.haifa.ac.il or Oriel Sullivan, Department of Behavioral Sciences, Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel, sullivan@bgumail.bgu.ac.il

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 ask whether 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.

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 analysis are 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. Many theories emphasize the

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

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

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 and the 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).

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

full attention. Additionally, much of the writing about womens experience of time has 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 KatzGerro 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.

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 the variables affecting leisure activities.

Methods The Longitudinal Perspective The longitudinal perspective concerns the collection and analysis of data over time. Such a perspective is nowadays considered essential if the purpose of the research is to understand social change. This is so because only longitudinal data permit a

diachronic analysis, in which the relative timing of events may be established (see Berthoud 2000). However, large-scale longitudinal empirical 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 multinational 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 as sequences 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 diary data are appropriate for documenting differences and trends over time and they have been shown to be more accurate than survey questions asking people about their leisure 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 activities for 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 --- Figure 2 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 about here -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 a dominant 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 support previous 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

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 to 0.2 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 about here -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 about here --- Figure 6 about here -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 inhome 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 asked whether 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 sociodemographic 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 longitudinal data 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 Cinema Outings Social eating Visit friends Sports TV Radio Reading Hosting Phone calls Nothing Video PC games PC email PC study PC paid PC other Description Going to concerts, theatre, cinema Walks, outings, etc. Eating out, drinking (pubs, restaurant) Visiting or meeting friends or relatives Sports participation, keeping fit Watching TV/cable/satellite TV Listening to radio, CD, cassette Reading newspapers, books, magazines Being visited by friends or relatives Receiving telephone calls Doing nothing at home Watching video, laser disks Games Email Study at home Paid work at home Other

29

100 %

10 %

20 %

30 %

40 %

50 %

60 %

70 %

80 %

90 %

0%

cin em a ou ti so cia ngs le at in vi g si tf rie nd s sp or ts TV

Figure 1: Trends in Participation Rates Men

30
pc Vi de o ga m es pc em ai l pc st ud y pc pa id pc ot he r

ra di o re ad in g ho ph stin g on e ca lls no th in g

61 75 87 97

100 %

10 %

20 %

30 %

40 %

50 %

60 %

70 %

80 %

90 %

0%

vo lu nt ar y ci ne m a ou tin so gs ci al ea tin g vi si tf rie nd s sp or ts TV ra di o

Figure 2: Trends in Participation Rates Women

31
no th in g Vi de o pc ga m es pc em ai l pc st ud y pc pa id pc ot he r

re ad in g ho st in ph g on e ca lls

61 75 87 97

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 1975 1987 1997# Men .46 .48 .54 .62 .28 .98 .40 .82 .35 .54 .62 .25 .10 .05 .01 .08 .01

Sex Women .44 .54* .47* .81*** .18*** .97 .37 .81 .56*** .65*** .69* .20 .05* .01** .03 .04 .01

Survey*Sex

Cinema Outings

.70 .37

.43 .60 .55 .75 .25 .99 .34 .89 .40 .50 .94 .18 .01 .01 .01 .03 .01

.22*** .56*** .62*** .73* .28*** .99** .31*** .75** .52** .56* .32*** .27* .14*** .06** .03 .09** .003

Social eating .35 Visit friends .67 Sports TV Radio Reading Hosting Phone calls Nothing Video PC games PC e-mail PC study PC paid PC other .16 .95 .51 .80 .45 .60 .71 NA NA NA NA NA NA

**

**

*p<.05 **p<.01 ***p<.001 # level of significance in this column refers to the survey variable

32

Figure 3: Significant Gender Differences in Participation Rates (adjusted means from multivariate analysis).

90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

outings visit friends hosting phone calls nothing sports social pc gamespc email eating

men women

33

Figure 4: Trends in Gender Differences in Participation Rates

30 % 25 % 20 % 15 % 10 % 5% 0% 61 sports 75 phone calls 87 pc games 97

34

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

140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0

s TV o a ie de m bb ne vi no th in g

Minutes

no comp comp

ho
35

ci

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

140 120 100 Minutes 80 60 40 20 0

o TV a s de m ie ne vi bb no th in g

no comp comp

ho
36

ci