Sayer leisure time research informs article in The Atlantic
Joe Pinsker writing for The Atlantic, reports about the leisure gap in America and its gender difference. The average man has about five and a half hours of free time compared to woman, who has five hours. According to Faculty Associate Liana Sayer, “The gender gap in leisure is intertwined with college [education] because of the ways college increases paid work time . . . and also with marriage and parental status, which increase women’s unpaid work more than they increase men’s paid work.” Additionally, parents tend to watch less TV than nonparents and have less leisure time overall. However, mothers have less time than fathers in general, she said.
Based on Sayer’s research, there are two possible theories that explain such differences. The first theory, “The idea is that men are able to watch more television, perhaps because they enjoy it, and the reason men are able to exercise greater preference in their time use choices is because they have [more] power than women”. The second theory argues that men have become more socially isolated than women. Women tend to have stronger networks of friends and are more likely to raise children as single parents, “men may devote a greater share and more time to television because this type of leisure does not require social integration” added Sayer.