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June 5, 2006
The Not-So-Changing Face of Leisure
Think people today have it easier than their predecessors of 100 years ago? Not so fast. According to a nifty new study, leisure per capita is about about the same now as it was in 1900.How so? Blame a decline in hours worked that has largely been offset by time spent in school, plus average hours spent in home production is slightly higher than it was in the early part of the 20th Century.
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Per rob cyran, the study's measure of leisure per capita will increase with the retirement of the boomer cohort (as proportion of the population that is retired will rise).
Man, it's hard to beat the good old 1930's. Could leisure be symptom of an unhealthy system?
The study isn't very convincing.
In 1900 people worked perhaps 40 years out of their 50 year lifespan. Even if one takes makes the rather wacky assumption that education is equivalent to slaving away in a dark satanic mill in Manchester (school may have been boring, but it wasn't that bad), people now live about 30 years past retirement. Seems like more leisure time to me.