World Leisure Journal

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The leisure society I: myths and misconceptions,

1960–1979

A.J. Veal

To cite this article: A.J. Veal (2011) The leisure society I: myths and misconceptions, 1960–1979,
World Leisure Journal, 53:3, 206-227, DOI: 10.1080/04419057.2011.606826

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World Leisure Journal
Vol. 53, Issue 3, September 2011, 206
227

COMMENTARY
The leisure society I: myths and misconceptions, 1960 1979
A.J. Veal


School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

Recent discussion in the World Leisure Journal has raised the issue of the place of
the ‘‘leisure society thesis’’ in the development of leisure studies. Some have
argued that the thesis was a key, but misconceived, ‘‘project’’ of the early phase of
leisure studies which has done lasting damage to the leisure studies brand. Others
argue that the thesis was a passing preoccupation which has long since been
superseded and is no longer of relevance. In this paper, it is noted that
recollections of the leisure studies thesis in its heyday of the 1960s and 1970s
are often unspecific and at times ill-informed. The paper is not a defence or
critique of the leisure society thesis but an attempt to establish a more accurate
history through discussion of five myths: 1. that portrayals of the leisure society in
the 1960s and 1970s invariably involved visions of the future; 2. that there was a
consensus within the leisure studies community concerning a future leisure
society; 3. that the thesis was a significant feature of the early leisure studies
literature; 4. that definitions of the leisure society were based on predictions of
falling working hours; and 5. that leisure society proponents themselves predicted
reductions in working hours.
Keywords: leisure society; leisure time; work time

Introduction
In a recent edition of the World Leisure Journal, Cara Aitchison (2010) took issue
with Chris Rojek’s (2010a) portrayal of the ‘‘leisure society thesis’’ as a major feature,
possibly the major feature, of the early development of the field of leisure studies. She
argued that, by the mid-1980s, the leisure society idea1 had been ‘‘largely revised,
refuted and replaced’’ by other significant themes and related paradigms from within
sociology and from other disciplinary traditions, notably physical education/human
movement and geography. In his response to Aitchison’s comments, Rojek stood his
ground, stating:
My reasons for looking again at the leisure society thesis are not nostalgic but
analytical, particularly with the issue of the institutionalised study of leisure today in
university settings. To put it bluntly, nothing before or since has been as successful in
capturing the public imagination. For students of leisure, the results of the gradual
submergence of the thesis in public life have been serious. The discipline has suffered a
relative decline . . . Leisure studies is left with an identity crisis of major proportions: it is
embarrassed about where it has come from (the promise of a shorter working week,
early retirement and well-funded activities for all), and it has not generated a new idea,
one big enough to put leisure back on the agenda of public debate and make student
enrolments in the subject expand. (Rojek, 2010b, p. 277)

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DOI: 10.1080/04419057.2011.606826
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 World Leisure Journal 207

Rojek is not alone in attributing such a pivotal role to the leisure society thesis.
Peter Bramham (2006, 2008) depicts it as the major ‘‘project’’ of leisure studies
during the 1970s, with three other projects characterising the following three decades.
It is quite common in the contemporary leisure studies research literature for the
leisure society idea to be referred to as the only, or the typical, defining feature of the
field in its early period, but one which was at best short-lived and at worst deeply
flawed. Examples of such recollections include: Carrington (2008, p. 36); Coalter
(2007, p. 9); Green, Hebron and Woodward (1990, p. 3); Roberts (2000, p. 4); Shaw
(2006, p. 257); and Waring (2008, p. 296). Similar references also appear in textbooks,
for example: Best (2010, p. 231); Bull, Hoose and Weed (2003, p. 282); Kelly and
Godbey (1992, p. 492); Page and Connell (2010, p. 20); Tribe (2005, p. 71); and
Wolsey and Brown (2001, p. 64).2
Table 1 presents a listing of the leisure society literature from 1960 to 1979. The
table includes relatively substantial contributions, excluding passing references of a
secondary nature.3 Information is included on the country and discipline of the
author, the type of publication (book, journal, etc.), the terminology used, details of
any cross-references to other sources on the leisure society thesis and a comment,
typically quoting a key phrase from the source. It can be seen that, of the 18 sources
listed, just over half are leisure studies specialists and the majority of the authors (10)
are from the USA, with six from the UK and just one each from France and Canada.
All except four are books, two are book chapters and just two are journal articles
subject to the peer review process. Of the latter, only one is from a leisure studies
journal, the first specialist journal, the Journal of Leisure Research, having been
published for the first time in 1969. The sources are divided into three groups: those
who held that the leisure society had already arrived (4); those who anticipated a
future leisure society (7); and those who questioned the leisure society thesis (7). One
author, Roberts, appears in two of the groups, for reasons explained below.
Analysis of this body of literature is used to address five myths which have arisen
in recollections and discussions of the leisure society concept: 1. that portrayals of
the leisure society in the 1960s and 1970s invariably involved visions of the future; 2.
that there was a consensus within the leisure studies community concerning a future
leisure society; 3. that the thesis was a significant feature of the early leisure studies
literature; 4. that definitions of the leisure society were based on predictions of falling
working hours; and 5. that leisure society proponents themselves predicted
reductions in working hours. The paper is not a critique or defence of the leisure
society thesis. It has a very limited aim: to provide a fuller and more accurate account
of ‘‘who said what’’ than is typically found in contemporary recollections of the
1960s and 1970s literature. While this period is seen as the heyday of the leisure
society thesis, the post-1980 literature, from both proponents and critics and from
leisure studies and other traditions, is more substantial, and will be discussed in a
follow-up paper. Furthermore, the leisure society idea did not emerge in the 1960s
from a vacuum; it arose against a background of lively debate in the inter-war years
on work, automation, unemployment and the ‘‘new leisure,’’ and post-war discussion
of mass leisure, work centrality and post-industrialism. These debates have been
extensively documented elsewhere (see Cross, 1989; Granter, 2008; Hunnicutt, 1980;
Kumar, 1978; Larrabee & Meyersohn, 1958; Smigel, 1963).
 208 A.J. Veal
Table 1. The leisure society literature: 1960
1979

Date Authors D* Country P** Term used*** Leisure soc. sources§ Comment

Leisure society already here

1960 Kaplan L USA B Age of leisure None ‘‘We are in an age of leisure.’’
1963 Miller & Robinson L USA B Leisure age None ‘‘the present day [is] a leisure age for new masses of
people.’’
1970 Roberts L UK B Leisure society None ‘‘Britain has become a society of leisure.’’
1972 Sessoms L USA BC Age of leisure None ‘‘We are entering the Age of Leisure.’’

Leisure society anticipated

1962/67 Dumazedier L France B Civilisation of Kahn and Wiener Realisation of a ‘‘civilisation of leisure’’ will depend
leisure on conscious social decisions. (Leisure society may
exist already
see Dumazedier, 1989).
1964 Gabor Sc UK B Age of leisure None Society is facing an age of leisure within one
generation.
1964 Lee T USA B Leisure society/ ‘‘Chorus of voices’’ ‘‘A chorus of voices proclaims we are headed
era toward’’ a leisure society.
1967 Kahn & Wiener F USA B Leisure- None The leisure-orientated society  a 2000 scenario
oriented soc. with 1,100 working hrs pa.
1972 Dahl T USA B Leisure- None Ten ‘‘major trends toward’’ a leisure society.
oriented soc.
1974/81 Neulinger L USA B Leisure society None To achieve the desired goal of a leisure society will
require effort, education.
1975 Strom E USA J Leisure society ‘‘Some futurists’’ ‘‘We must prepare tomorrow’s adults for life in the
leisure society.’’
Table 1 (Continued )

Date Authors D* Country P** Term used*** Leisure soc. sources§ Comment

Leisure society thesis questioned

1962 de Grazia L USA B Age of leisure ‘‘Many persons’’ Many believe we face a new age of leisure, but in
fact, net leisure time is not increasing.
1974 Zuzanek L Canada LJ Leisure society Dumazedier, Kahn Work/leisure futures should be analysed in terms of
‘‘an economically and culturally patterned leisure or
Leisure society already here life style.’’
1976 Parker L UK B Leisure society Roberts, Dumazedier Reduced working hours exaggerated; leisure society
predictions are ‘‘not taken seriously, neither should
they be.’’
1975 Basini E UK BC Age of leisure Unnamed recreation, ‘‘Euphoria regarding an imminent society of leisure
planning, education is premature.’’ Working hours are not falling.
sources
1975 Kando L USA B Leisure society None Conditions exist for leisure society, but US culture
and capitalism resistant/inimical.
1975/78 Roberts L UK B Leisure None ‘‘Talk of a leisure civilisation or a society of leisure is
civilisation/ misconceived.’’

World Leisure Journal 209

society
1978 Kumar S UK B Leisure society None ‘‘The leisured society is an ever receding goal.’’
*Discipline/specialism: L: leisure specialist (known to have other publications on leisure); E: educationist; F: futurist; T: theologian; S: sociologist/social scientist; Sc:
scientist.
**B: book; BC: book chapter; J: journal; LJ: leisure journal.
***‘‘Leisure society’’ includes ‘‘Society of leisure.’’
§References to other sources on the leisure society.
210 A.J. Veal

Myth 1: portrayals of the leisure society in the 1960s and 1970s all involved visions of
the future
If the leisure society thesis is based on a future vision that did not come to fruition,
then it can be criticised for lacking a valid model of social and economic change or, in
the light of unforeseen events, such as oil price crises, recession and the advent of
globalisation, it may simply be seen as irrelevant, given the changed conditions.
However, not all conceptions of the leisure society in the 1960s and 1970s were about
the future. The first group of four sources in Table 1 (Kaplan, Miller & Robinson,
Roberts and Sessoms) argued that the leisure society had already arrived.
Max Kaplan (1960, p. 3) opens Leisure in America with a declaration that
America could be said to be ‘‘in an age of leisure’’ because ‘‘we have as much time
during the day away from work as we have in work.’’ This appears to have been based
on discussion, later in the book, of US data on a full-time male worker pattern,
involving a weekday with eight hours of paid work and eight waking hours away
from paid work. The eight hours away from paid work would not have been wholly
devoted to leisure activity, but perhaps if weekends and holidays had been taken into
account the proposition that there was more leisure time than paid work time
for
men
would have been supported. Kaplan also refers, in a single paragraph, to a
variety of social and economic changes recently experienced in America, which
appear to be offered as additional evidence of the existence of an age of leisure,
including reduced working hours, changed family life, increased ‘‘rootlessness,’’ a
decline in the importance of traditional ‘‘sources of control, such as the church and
elders of the community,’’ the growth of visual media, ageing of the population and
modification of ideas about class. However, the connections between these changes
and the age of leisure idea are not explicitly addressed.
Norman Miller and Duane Robinson (1963, p. v) state: ‘‘The twentieth century
finds man turning more and more to his increasing free time to fulfill himself. It is
during leisure time and through play and recreation that increasing numbers of
people find the means for creative self-expression. The effect of this movement has
made the present day a leisure age for new masses of people.’’ No elaboration of this
statement is offered. Douglas Sessoms (1972, p. 312) offers a similarly brief assertion
that the ‘‘age of leisure’’ could be said to have arrived because advances in
technology had already ‘‘freed many from the drudgery of routine work.’’
Of the four authors in this group, Kenneth Roberts provides the fullest
exposition:
The information we have at our disposal does suggest that, along with other modern
societies, Britain has become a society of leisure in that activities in which people elect to
participate during their free time play a significant part in the development of their sense
of self-identity, and leisure thereby is accorded the power to reciprocate the influence
that other institutions have upon it . . . The influence that leisure exerts upon people’s
lives and upon other institutions is specific to advanced industrial societies, which is why
it is justifiable to call them societies of leisure. (Roberts, 1970, pp. 101
102)

It is notable that this is a qualitative rather than a quantitative definition, an issue we

return to later in the paper.
If the leisure society was already deemed to have arrived in the 1960s or 1970s,
where does this leave contemporary criticism of the concept? Clearly, these authors
cannot be criticised on the basis of having failed to anticipate future events: their
 World Leisure Journal 211

description of Western countries as leisure societies stands or falls on their

assessment of conditions existing in the 1960s and early 1970s. It is not proposed
to resolve this issue here, but just to note that this view of the leisure society was not
acknowledged, let alone challenged, by critics at the time and has not been
challenged since.
A curious footnote to this phenomenon is provided by Joffre Dumazedier, the
most well-known figure associated with the leisure society thesis. His book, Toward a
Society of Leisure (Dumazedier, 1967), was published in English in 1967, but had
originally been published in French in 1962 under the title Vers Une Civilization du
Loisir? (Dumazedier, 1962). The deletion of the question mark from the title of the
English version clearly removes the tentative stance of the original, and was, it seems,
done without Dumazedier’s approval. Jiri Zuzanek (2003) has pointed out that
Dumazedier was ‘‘the first one to emphasize that the French title of . . . Toward a
Society of Leisure, ended with a question mark.’’ The other difference between the
titles of the two editions was the substitution of ‘‘society’’ for ‘‘civilization.’’ And yet
within the book, Dumazedier uses only the word ‘‘civilization.’’ Since any difference
which might exist between ‘‘society’’ and ‘‘civilization’’ is not discussed in the book,
the reader of the English edition would naturally assume that the two terms are
probably interchangeable. However, many years later, Dumazedier (1989, p. 149)
offered a surprising clarification, when he stated: ‘‘The leisure civilization has still to
be created. We live in a leisure society, but one that is still far away from the
awareness which might create a balance in social time more attuned to the
development of both the individual and society.’’ Thus, for Dumazedier, a leisure
society already existed in Western countries in 1989, but it was different from
a leisure civilisation, which might be achieved in the future. He offered no detailed
explanation but, since he did not speak of particular changes in the more than
25 years between the first publication of his book and this statement, it could
reasonably be assumed that the remark applied to the 1960s as well as the 1980s. This
raises the question, in regard to the English edition of his book, as to how we could
be moving toward a society of leisure if we were already living in one. This distinction
between the ‘‘society’’ and the ‘‘civilisation’’ of leisure also raises the question of
definitions and this is discussed under Myth 3 below.

Myth 2: in the 1960s and 1970s there was a consensus within the leisure studies
community concerning the prospect of a future leisure society
It should be noted that the number of proponents of a future leisure society was
relatively small. Six are identified in Table 1, of whom only two were leisure studies
specialists: Dumazedier and John Neulinger.4 Thus, including the four already
discussed, six leisure studies specialists were proponents of the leisure society thesis.
Of the five proponents who were not leisure studies specialists, two were theologians
(Lee, Dahl), and the others were a scientist (Gabor), futurologists (Kahn and
Wiener) and an education specialist (Strom). It is notable that only one of the ten
refers to others on the list in regard to the leisure society thesis: Dumazedier (1971,
pp. 193
194) refers to Kahn and Wiener’s (1967) work as ‘‘too linear and too
optimistic.’’
Seven authors identified in Table 1 were critical of the leisure society thesis, of
whom five were leisure specialists. Sebastian de Grazia (1962, p. 86) based his critique
212 A.J. Veal

on a claim that reductions in paid working hours over earlier decades had been
whittled away by increases in time devoted to travel to work and personal and
domestic ‘‘maintenance’’ activities, of the sort later identified by Linder (1970).
Zuzanek (1974) contrasted the leisure society thesis (with reference to Dumazedier
and Kahn) with a ‘‘harried leisure class’’ thesis (Linder, 1970), concluding that
neither was convincing and that ‘‘the future of work/leisure should not be analysed
solely in a linear, quantitative way, but in terms of ‘an economically and culturally
patterned leisure or life style’’’ (Zuzanek, 1974, p. 304). Stanley Parker (1976) argued
that the extent of reductions in working hours and the significance of leisure in
people’s lives had been exaggerated. Uniquely, he directed criticism at named
proponents, Roberts and Dumazedier. Augustine Basini (1975, p. 102) described the
leisure society as an ‘‘unproven assumption,’’ declaring that ‘‘euphoria regarding an
imminent society of leisure is premature’’ and that working hours in Britain at the
time were not falling, a point of view shared by the other non-leisure studies critic,
Krishan Kumar (1978, p. 83), who consequently described the leisure society as ‘‘an
ever-receding goal.’’
Thomas Kando’s (1975, 1980) critique of the leisure society thesis is arguably
the most thorough published to date. He replicated and updated de Grazia’s time-
use trend analysis in two editions of his book, coming to similar conclusions. He
nevertheless concluded that the material economic conditions existed for moving
towards a leisure society in America, but that the innate nature of the American
capitalist system and its associated materialist and work-oriented culture prevented it
from happening. He concluded: ‘‘It may be that a civilization capable of creating
the conditions necessary for true leisure, an affluent material base, has no use for
leisure itself; and conversely, a culture whose ideology is supportive of leisure may
not be able to erect leisure’s material foundation’’ (Kando, 1975, p. 100).
Roberts appears among the ranks of the critics as well as the proponents because
he changed his position. He made his first negative remarks in a 1975 paper (Roberts,
1975), but his clearest statement, contradicting his 1970 statement discussed above
(although not referring to it), was presented in 1978:
The growth of leisure is affecting the quality of life, but leisure is not becoming the
whole of it. Talk of a leisure civilisation or a society of leisure is misconceived . . . Leisure
has not become and is not becoming synonymous with or the basis of modern life in
general . . . There are limits to how widely the influence of leisure is spreading
throughout the social structure. Work and politics are two areas of life where its
impact is slight and, while this remains so, talk of a society of leisure is ill-advised.
(Roberts, 1978, pp. 146
148)
This suggests that Roberts had changed his assessment of the empirical conditions in
Britain rather than the logic of his original statement. It implies that if, for example,
the impact of leisure on work or politics were to increase, the conditions for a leisure
society might again be realised. On the other hand, if Britain had changed from a
leisure society to a non-leisure society in 15 years, this should surely have been a
matter for comment.
Following his 1960 statement, Kaplan apparently never wrote about the leisure
society again, even when writing about the future of leisure (Kaplan, 1968), and
Sessoms wrote only one other paper on the topic (Sessoms, 1974), so it is possible
that they also came to realise that they had been mistaken.
 World Leisure Journal 213

Given that there were known proponents and critics of the leisure society thesis,
one would expect to find that the topic was the subject of debate within the leisure
studies community. But, with the exception of the contributions of Parker and
Zuzanek, the critics do not refer to the leisure society proponents by name, or to the
specifics of their work. And the proponents do not refer to the critics. Even Kando
(1975, 1980), who offers the most substantial discussion of the topic, does not refer
to named proponents. And Neulinger (1981), while making frequent references to
Dumazedier when he is discussing leisure definitions and theory, makes no such
reference when he is discussing the leisure society. So there was no apparent direct
debate between proponents and critics. Nevertheless, given that the two groups
existed with opposing views, it is difficult to conclude that there was a consensus
among members of the leisure studies community regarding the leisure society.
This brief compilation of the relevant literature may help to counter some of the
inaccuracies which appear from time to time in some of the recollections of the
leisure society concept in the current literature. Thus, for example, Aitchison (2010)
indicates, and Bramham (2006) implies, that Roberts supported the leisure society
thesis in Contemporary Society and the Growth of Leisure (Roberts, 1978), whereas
that is the volume in which he rejected it. Bramham (2006), Waring (2008) and Best
(2010, p. 231) associate Stanley Parker with the leisure society but, in The Future of
Work and Leisure, to which they refer, Parker does not mention the leisure society
and is quite sceptical about claims of falling working hours (Parker, 1971, p. 11).
And, as we have seen, in later publications he made clear that he rejected the thesis
(Parker, 1975, p. 33; 1976, p. 147). A number of commentators associate post-
industrial theorist Daniel Bell with the leisure society thesis (Best, 2010, p. 231;
Rojek, 2005, p. 3; Waring, 2008), but Bell’s (1973, p. 475) view of the future did not
involve a leisure society and was very far from the optimism typically associated with
the leisure society (see Granter, 2008, pp. 918
919). Some have associated Thorstein
Veblen with the evolution of the leisure society idea (Ravenscroft & Gilchrist, 2009;
Rojek, 1995, pp. 80
81) but, while Veblen (1899/1970, pp. 68
70) envisaged the
masses seeking to emulate the conspicuous consumption of the leisure class, he did
not envisage them emulating its conspicuous leisure.

Myth 3: the leisure society was a significant feature of the leisure studies literature of
the 1960s and 1970s
This section raises questions as to the significance of the leisure society thesis in
leisure studies on the basis of evidence about the absence of the leisure society thesis
from key parts of the leisure studies literature.
Arguably, the first major post-World War II publication on leisure was the 1958
edited volume, Mass Leisure (Larrabee & Meyersohn, 1958). None of the 42 papers
was specifically about a future leisure society; they were generally about life in 1950s
America. Even the papers in the last section on ‘‘The Future of Leisure’’ did not
address the issue.
The British equivalent, Leisure and Society in Britain (Smith, Parker, & Smith,
1973), did not include a paper on the leisure society. The only reference to the topic
that can be found in the book is an unreferenced passing mention in the editors’
introduction, which states: ‘‘only when changes have occurred in the ownership and
214 A.J. Veal

control of economic resources will a society of leisure be possible. Until then leisure
simply reflects and perpetuates inequality’’ (Smith, Parker, & Smith, 1973, p. 11).
The initial issue of the first refereed journal in the field, the Journal of Leisure
Research (JLR), contained a bibliography of over 200 items on the sociology of
leisure, 1945
65, divided into 11 sections, none of which was concerned with the
leisure society, or even the future (Meyersohn, 1969). Only one reference included the
term ‘‘leisure society’’ in its title
a paper by Denney (1959) which, despite bearing
the title, ‘‘The leisure society: Do we use leisure or does leisure use us?’’ does not
actually discuss the leisure society. Of over 300 articles in JLR up to 1979, only one
contains the term ‘‘leisure society,’’ or similar, in its title
the paper by Zuzanek
(1974) which, as noted above, was critical of the leisure society thesis rather than
supportive. A review of Dumazedier’s Toward a Society of Leisure in the first volume
of JLR (Clawson, 1969), does not mention the leisure society concept but
concentrates on Dumazedier’s general sociology of leisure.
In Britain, the only mention of the leisure society in the proceedings of the 1973
symposium at which the Leisure Studies Association (LSA) was conceived was the
paper by Basini (1975), which, as noted above, was critical of the concept. The LSA
was established in 1975 and in the proceedings of its first conference, the only
mention of the leisure society is the paper by Roberts (1975), also mentioned above,
in which for the first time he rejects the leisure society concept. The LSA held
another eight conferences by the end of 1979, none of them concerned with the
leisure society (Leisure Studies Association, n.d.). Even the 1976 conference on
‘‘Forecasting Leisure Futures’’ did not include a paper on the topic (Haworth &
Parker, 1976). The LSA journal, Leisure Studies, did not begin publication until
1982.
Therefore, in major leisure studies publication outlets in the 1960s and 1970s,
containing many hundreds of papers, we find just five mentions of the thesis which is
now widely believed to have been so important at this time. These comprised: an
unreferenced passing mention in an editors’ introduction (Smith, Parker, & Smith,
1973, p. 11); a reference in a bibliography (Meyersohn, 1969) to a paper which
includes ‘‘leisure society’’ in its title but does not actually discuss the topic (Denney
(1959); and three papers which rejected the thesis (Basini, 1975; Roberts, 1975;
Zuzanek, 1974).
In spite of Rojek’s views on the significant, if flawed, role of the leisure society in
the development of leisure studies, his own four-volume edited compendium of
almost 100 pre-published papers on leisure (Rojek, 2010c) does not include a paper
on the leisure society, although in his introduction (Rojek, 2010d) he outlines his
critique of it.

Myth 4: definitions of the leisure society were based on predictions of falling working
hours and increased leisure time
There is a remarkable paucity of precise definitions of the leisure society in the 1960s
and 1970s literature. One feature of available definitions is that they are not all
quantitative: that is, they are not predicated on anticipated reductions in working
hours. Three leisure society proponents offer qualitative definitions. Sessoms (1972),
p. 312) can be dealt with summarily since his brief definitional statement, as noted
 World Leisure Journal 215

above, refers to the single criterion of relief from ‘‘the drudgery of routine work,’’
although he does not explain precisely what is meant by ‘‘routine work.’’
Roberts’s 1970 statement, quoted above, indicates that a leisure society is one in
which leisure is a significant source of people’s sense of self-identity and exercises a
reciprocal influence on other institutions in society. Although Roberts does not
explicitly refer to the idea of quantitative and qualitative definitions of the leisure
society, in the same book in which he makes his qualitative statement, he indicates
that he rejects a quantitative definition. Thus, he states, there are two views on the
future of work and leisure: one a ‘‘leisure age’’ in which ‘‘it has been suggested that
work may well come to be treated as spare-time activity’’ (Roberts, 1970, p. 20), and
another in which working hours will continue at their present level as workers seek to
maximise material consumption. Roberts rejects both these ‘‘extreme predictions’’
and expresses his own view that ‘‘leisure will continue to expand, but slowly and
undramatically’’ (Roberts, 1970, p. 22), presumably, therefore, not meriting the label
‘‘leisure age,’’ or at least not for a long time.
We have noted that Roberts first expressed negative sentiments regarding the
society of leisure in a 1975 paper, ‘‘The society of leisure: Myths and reality.’’ Here he
first rejects another type of quantitative definition of leisure, in stating that
increasing levels of participation in various activities
notably sport, countryside
recreation, tourism and cultural activities
cannot be equated with ‘‘the emergence
of a ‘society of leisure’’’ (Roberts, 1975, p. 5). The main thrust of the paper is to warn
against simplistic extrapolation of past trends and to argue for the pursuit of deeper
understanding of motivations for, and the social context of, leisure behaviour.
However, in doing so, Roberts seems to take the notion of progress towards a leisure
society as a given. For example, he states: ‘‘To the extent that we are moving towards
a society of leisure, this must mean that the options are somewhat wider than the
voices of those lobbying on behalf of already institutionalised forms of recreation
might indicate’’ (Roberts, 1975, p. 5). And: ‘‘It is extravagant . . . to infer that we are
entering a society of leisure in which the quality of life will depend, above all else,
upon provision for out-of-home recreation. Our society of leisure, if it deserves the
title, remains solidly anchored around home, family and television’’ (Roberts, 1975,
p. 8). However, he then appears to move away from this position when he asks:
Are we verging on a golden age of leisure or threatened by a wilderness of boredom?
Before taking such questions too seriously, we should remind ourselves that social
science is not really in the prediction business. Social science may clarify past and
present trends, and may thereby actually influence the future, but it is simply impossible
to write history in advance. (Roberts, 1975, p. 13)
Thus Roberts rejects, in effect, the possibility of predicting a future society of leisure,
or anything else. In passing, he offers a further defining feature of an age/society of
leisure: that it would not be expected to be boring. He also follows Dumazedier, as
noted below, in adding the adjective ‘‘golden,’’ a descriptor not used by any of the
leisure society proponents.
However, although he does not say so, Roberts’s rejection of quantitative
definitions of the leisure society and of predictions of an imminent leisure society
does not necessarily rule out his earlier qualitative statement on the criteria for the
existence of a leisure society. As we have seen, in 1978 he reversed this earlier position
and rejected the proposition that contemporary Western societies were already
216 A.J. Veal

societies of leisure, but in doing so he used similar criteria to argue that the leisure
society had not materialised. This leaves open the possibility that the criteria might
be met at some time in the future. Thus his qualitative definition still stands.
As the major figure in the field, Dumazedier’s views are clearly of key
significance. In Toward a Society of Leisure, it is difficult to pin him down as
regards definitions, or even the precise nature of his version of the leisure society
thesis. Much of the book is, after all, a straight sociology of leisure as experienced in
France: it could quite appropriately have been entitled Leisure and Society in
France. This is consistent with his remarks in a later publication (Dumazedier, 1974,
pp. 211
212) which indicated that he had included ‘‘leisure society’’ in the title as a
device to attract the attention of fellow sociologists and alert them to the significance
of leisure, but that he had failed in this aim. The main focus of Dumazedier’s analysis
was not some speculative future but the past and present. His view was that leisure
was already the ‘‘very central element in the life-culture of millions upon millions of
workers’’ (Dumazedier, 1967, pp. 3-4). Western society, with its morality, work ethic
and materialist culture, was failing to address the challenges this presented. A society
which successfully rose to this challenge would be a ‘‘civilization of leisure.’’ He states
that the ‘‘central question of a leisure civilization’’ is:
How can a civilization in which leisure has become a right for everyone and is tending
little by little to become a fact for the mass of the people, help each individual, whatever
his birth, wealth or education, to achieve an optimum balance freely chosen from among
the needs for repose, for entertainment, and for participation in social and cultural life?
(Dumazedier, 1967, p. 242)

According to Dumazedier, addressing these matters called for the democratisation of

education and of culture. In contrast, he states, ‘‘the cultural development of our
mass society is enveloped in incoherence and impotence’’ (Dumazedier, 1967, p. 243).
The leisure society/leisure civilisation issue highlighted by the translation of
Dumazedier’s work into English, as discussed earlier, is clearly definitional and two
comments in the book and two from later publications shed light on it:
Essayists and poets have been misled by the spectacle into thinking that leisure plays an
even more autonomous and preponderant role in daily life than it does. Denis de
Rougemont, for one, has described our ‘‘era of leisure’’ as a new Golden Age which will
witness the magical vanishing of all social problems. (Dumazedier, 1967, p. 4)5

There are those who believe that the complex and ambiguous state of leisure today is on
the threshold of a profound transformation. Thanks to the discovery of new sources of
energy and to the spread of automation, the time spent at work should be reduced fairly
rapidly for everyone. A new situation would then arise, in which old social problems
would disappear. The poets will win out over the sociologists: we shall leave the era of
work to enter into the ‘‘era of leisure.’’ (Dumazedier, 1967, p. 33)

The predictions of physicists such as Kahn or of economists need to be based on

projective and comparative research of all the social sciences working together. Many
factors, not only technological and economic, but also social and cultural are involved.
To a sociologist, such anticipations as those of Kahn seem too linear and also too
optimistic. (Dumazedier, 1971, pp. 193
194)

It must be emphasised that the extension of leisure certainly depends on technical

progress, but it does not depend on that alone. The hailing of the ‘‘era of leisure’’ as an
automatic consequence of automation is a new form of what Friedmann calls ‘‘technical
utopianism.’’ Leisure results both from the possibilities offered by technical progress
 World Leisure Journal 217

and from the conscious or unconscious socioeconomic choices of the nation and of the
classes and social groups of which the nation is composed . . . Technical progress merely
fixes the limits within which social choices can be made. (Dumazedier & Latouche, 1977,
p. 127)
Dumazedier was a sociologist, not a poet; he did not believe in the simplistic views of
the future peddled by poets, physicists and economists, with which he associated the
term ‘‘era of leisure.’’ It is possible that the ‘‘era of leisure’’ is the same as the leisure
society to which he referred in his 1989 paper, with translation from the French
causing the inconsistency. It is a society in which technology and market forces have
produced more leisure time and high levels of consumption
‘‘leisure à l’américaine’’
(Dumazedier, 1967, p. 40), but it is not one in which conscious ‘‘social choices’’ have
been made about the place of leisure in society: that is, it is not a civilization of
leisure. Thus, achievement of the civilisation of leisure was not an inevitability but a
political project. This stance was also adopted by Neulinger, who spoke of the
necessity of ‘‘understanding and overcoming the forces that will be directed against
the establishment of a worldwide leisure society’’ (Neulinger, 1981, p. 216), and who
later published a sort of philosophical manifesto for a leisure society (Neulinger,
1990) and became chair of the Society for the Reduction of Human Labor.6
Clearly, the definitions of Roberts, Sessoms and Dumazedier are qualitative.
Although they must depend in part on the availability of a certain amount of leisure
time, they are not determined by this criterion. However, while each of the three
authors offers his own opinion as to whether the conditions for a leisure society
have or have not been met, they do not offer guidance on how these qualitative
conditions should be assessed, so the question of whether a leisure society exists in
any given situation remains a personal view of the author.
Three other proponents offer definitions of the leisure society which are
quantitative. While Kaplan’s definition, noted above, seems to involve a number of
qualitative changes in American life as background, his main criterion is that
the amount of leisure time exceeds the amount of work time, a situation which, he
argued, had already been achieved in the 1950s. Neulinger, despite his considerable
commitment to the leisure society thesis, does not offer a formal definition but, on
the basis of the observation that tourism expenditure was the second-ranking item of
retail expenditure in the United States in 1972, he states: ‘‘On the surface, such
evidence seems to indicate that we have not only reached a point where a ‘leisure
society’ is just around the corner, but that we have already turned that corner’’
(Neulinger, 1981, p. 147). In subsequent discussions, however, he reverts to the
assumption that the leisure society lies in the future. Futurologists Kahn and Wiener
(1967) (the same Herman Kahn whose work Dumazedier criticised), were unique in
specifying a particular number of working hours in their future ‘‘leisure-oriented
society’’ scenario. They noted that the average working year for full-time American
employees stood at 2,000 in the 1960s and that in the post-World War II period, the
rate of decline in working hours had slowed compared with pre-war rates, suggesting
a working year of 1,700
1,900 hours by the year 2000. But, without providing any
justification, they then assumed a ‘‘renewed tendency’’ for the faster rate of decline to
resume in future, so they adopted 1,100 hours a year for their year-2000 leisure-
oriented scenario (Kahn & Wiener, 1967, p. 125). Despite the lack of a sound basis
for the figure, and the fact that it was in any case a ‘‘scenario’’ rather than a firm
prediction, the figure was reported as a prediction in at least two textbooks (Carlson,
218 A.J. Veal

MacLean, Deppe, & Peterson, 1979, p. 25; Kraus, 1971, p. 463). Kahn and Wiener
were unique among the leisure society proponents in two other ways. First, they
provided a speculative account of how the increase in leisure time might affect the
leisure behaviour patterns of the various classes in American society. Second, they
not only used a specific target date and working-hours figure, but it was also one of
their own devising. This observation leads to Myth 5.

Myth 5: leisure society proponents themselves predicted reductions in working hours

The uniqueness of Kahn and Wiener’s position was that although falling working
hours formed the backdrop to the leisure society thesis, specific predictions were
not typically produced or referred to by proponents of a future leisure society.
Published predictions were, however, available during the period, as Table 2 indicates.
Of the eleven predictions listed, only Kahn and Wiener’s appeared in association
with a leisure society prognostication. While Kaplan is listed as a source in Table 2
and was also a leisure society proponent, his working-hours prediction did not
appear in the same book as his leisure society statement, but in a later publication,
and in a footnote (Kaplan, 1975, p. 4n). Conversely, it is notable that none of the
other leisure society proponents listed in Table 1 made explicit references to any of
the predictions in Table 2.
In a number of cases, the basis of the working-hours prediction is not explained.
In most cases, ‘‘author’s projection’’ indicates that past trends in working hours,
dating from as far back as the nineteenth century, were translated into a rate of
decline per decade and this became the assumed future rate of change on which the
future projection was based (see column 6 of Table 2.) The average assumed
reduction in weekly working hours per decade was 3.7, with a median of about 3.
Most of the projections relate to the year 2000, for which the average predicted work
week was 29.3 hours, although it would undoubtedly be lower if the Jensen and
Nanus and Adelman figures were to be projected to 2000. The median is about 30.
With the advantage of hindsight, we now know that this figure was too low.
Typically, the misjudgement is attributed to the impact on Western economies of
unforeseen events, such as the 1970s oil price crises and the rise of globalisation,
particularly the competition offered by low-wage developing economies (Bramham,
2006, 2008; Rojek, 2010a, p. 21). The fact that working hours did not continue to fall
was, in due course, drawn to the attention of the leisure studies community by the
work of Hunnicutt (1980) and Schor (1991). It should be noted, however, that the
experience in Europe was somewhat different from the USA (Schor, 2006), although
Robinson and Godbey (2004) argue that, even for the US, on the basis of time-use
rather than labour survey data, paid work time was continuing to fall up to the 1990s.
However, what leisure society proponents of the 1960s and 1970s failed to observe
was that the working-hours projections of the time were generally flawed, in their
own terms, from the moment they were published.
Figure 1 reproduces a diagram based on US Bureau of Labor Statistics data and
published in 1958 (Zeisel, 1958). It provides data on average weekly working hours
for the period 1850 to 1940 in decades, and then annual figures for the period 1941 to
1956. The different horizontal scale of the two halves of the diagram exaggerates the
difference in the slopes of the two lines, but it can clearly be seen that the rate of
decrease in working hours slowed after World War II. The rate of decline in weekly
Table 2. Working hours: predictions, 1960
1979

Assumed future rate Working time Leisure

Author Country Year D.* Source of change, hrs/decade predicted, hrs/week Target date society link?

Holman USA 1961 St Author’s projection 4.4 28 2000 No

Outdoor Recreation USA 1962 St Bureau of Labor 1.9 31 2000 No
Resources Review Comm. Statistics
(ORRRC)
Resources for the Future$ USA 1963 N Not stated 1.0 37 2000 No
Douglas & Crawford USA 1964 L Not stated 2.5 31 2000 No
Dower UK 1965 L Not stated 3.4 30 2000 No
Fourastié France 1965 L Author’s prediction 3.3 30 1995 No
Kahn & Wiener** USA 1967 F Authors’ scenario 4.5 21 2000 Yes
National Planning Assn$ USA 1967 P Not stated 2.7 31 2000 No
Jensen USA 1970 L Not stated 2.7? 32 Readers’ lifetime No
Kaplan USA 1975 L Author’s estimate 6.8 20 2000 No

World Leisure Journal 219

Nanus & Adelman USA 1976 PS US Dept. of Labor 7.5 32 1980 No
Delphi analysis
Mean 3.7 29.3
*Discipline/specialism: F: futurist; L: leisure specialist; N: not known; P: planner; PS: public servant; St: statistician.
**Scenario.
? Assumed figure in the absence of information from source.
$ Source: Ewald (1972).
220 A.J. Veal

Figure 1. Working hours, USA, 1850
1940 and 1941
1956.

working hours was 2.9 per decade between 1850 and 1940 and 4.5 per decade
between 1900 and 1940, but between 1941 and 1956 the rate was just 2 hours per
decade. If we omit the exceptional war-time years, the rate between 1946 and 1956
was just 1.5 hours, and from 1950 to 1956 there was no change at all. Thus, it would
have been very misleading to use the pre-war, per-decade, rate of decline, or a straight
line between some pre-war year and a post-war year, as the basis for projecting
the trend to the end of the twentieth century. But that is precisely what most of the
forecasters listed in Table 2 did. Over the three and a half decades to the end of the
twentieth century, the period over which the predictions of weekly working hours
were typically made, the difference between the assumed rate of decline of three hours
per decade and the actual rate of 1.5 hours per decade resulted in predictions that
were 5.25 hours a week too high.
But this egregious error was compounded by a failure to take account of the
changing composition of the labour force, which came in two main forms:
the number of women (and, in the USA, of college students) joining the workforce
in the post-war period; and the continuing changes in the industrial structure of the
labour force in the post-war period.
The women and, in the USA, college students joining the workforce in the post-
war period included a significant proportion of part-time workers, so their increasing
numbers reduced the overall average working-hours figure. This was already
apparent in the 1960s. Thus, Moore and Hedges (1971) showed that between 1955
and 1960, average weekly working hours for all employees (including the additional
women and students) fell by 1.1 hours but for full-time workers alone (which
excluded most of the additional female and student workers), the fall was just
0.2 hours. Between 1960 and 1965, working hours were steady for all employees, but
increased by 0.4 hours for full-timers. Extending analysis to the period 1948
1975,
Owen (1976) observed that overall average working hours showed a decline of just
 World Leisure Journal 221

under two hours a week, but for full-time non-student men only, the reduction was
just 0.2 hours. This analysis is not the wisdom of hindsight, it is based on analysis
undertaken in the 1970s.
Continuing changes in the industrial structure of the labour force in the post-war
period were marked by manufacturing and agriculture shedding labour, in relative
terms, and service sector employment increasing. However, particularly before the
advent of digital information technology, services had less scope for increasing
productivity, so they could not contribute to the trend which had been made possible
by the mechanisation of agriculture and the automation of manufacturing and which
had enabled increased production and incomes to be accompanied by falling
working hours for the first half of the century. Even without foreseeing the effects of
globalisation, Burck (1970) noted that, in the period 1948 to 1968, manufacturing,
agriculture and mining employment in the United States had fallen from 47% of the
labour force to 36%, and was predicted to fall to 30% by 1980. In the same period,
service employment had grown from 53% to 64% of the workforce and was predicted
to grow to 70% by 1980. He concluded: ‘‘The leisure society is a myth because more
and more man-hours will be needed to provide ever-expanding services’’ (Burck,
1970, p. 343). There would be limited opportunities for reducing working hours
because there would be a slowing in the rate of growth in labour productivity, a
feature of the emerging post-industrial (that is, service-based) society which was also
recognised by Daniel Bell (1973, p. 463).
The United States was the first economy to enter this service-based, ‘‘post-
industrial’’ stage, followed closely by Britain. While other factors may have been at
work, Kando (1980, p. 95) notes that these two countries had the lowest rates of
productivity growth of nine developed economies in the period 1960 to 1976, and
therefore had the least scope for reducing working hours.
A further factor which counteracts the predicted reduction in working hours
discussed above, but is not reflected in the working-hours data, is changes in holiday
entitlements. When this is taken into account and averaged over the year, Owen’s
(1976) figure quoted above, 0.2 hours reduction for men between 1948 and 1975,
increases to 0.7 hours. But this is still only 15 minutes per decade.
Thus we find that a common prediction of a working week of 30 hours or less by
the year 2000 was based on erroneous data analysis and interpretation. While de
Grazia’s (1974, p. 96) critique of the figures on rising leisure time was based on other
factors, his comment was apt: ‘‘The past from which these figures were launched was
not studied carefully enough. They are based on bad history.’’ This was despite the
fact that the relevant US data were being gathered and made publicly available by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. And it was before the effects of the oil crises and rapid
globalisation were being felt. The analysis recognises that working hours would be
likely to fall, but that any decline would be much slower than the predictions
presented in Table 2.
The first oil price crisis occurred in 1973 and did, of course, have an effect on
economic growth around the world. However, Figure 2 indicates that, while 1974 saw
a sharp decline in the real rate of growth in gross domestic product per person
employed in the UK and US, it had bounced back again by 1976, albeit to a point
about 1% below pre-crisis levels. Furthermore, Owen’s (1976) figures for the US show
no disruption of the pattern of slowly falling working hours of employed males
between 1972 and 1975. Similarly, Gallie’s (2000) data on British male manual
222 A.J. Veal

Figure 2. Trends in gross domestic product, per employee, UK and USA, 1960
1979.

workers shows no interruption in the slow downward trend up to 1975, but it stalled
in 1980. Pursuing these trends into the 1980s and beyond is outside the scope of the
present paper but will be taken up in the follow-up paper.

Summary and conclusions

The paper began with the disagreement between Cara Aitchison and Chris Rojek
regarding the significance of the leisure society thesis in the early development of
leisure studies. It was then observed that identifying the leisure society thesis as a, if
not the, key characteristic of leisure studies in the 1960s and 1970s is quite common
in contemporary leisure studies literature, but the recollections of the nature and
literature sources of the thesis are often inaccurate. These matters were discussed
using the framework provided by five myths about the leisure society which can be
detected in the leisure studies literature.
Regarding the significance of the thesis in the development of leisure studies, the
evidence presented in the discussion of Myths 2 and 3 suggests that this has indeed
been exaggerated. As an academic project, the leisure society thesis was, curiously,
lacking in robust debate and absent from much of the mainstream leisure studies
literature of the period. The relevant literature is lacking in definitional precision and
is marked by inconsistencies and contradictions. This finding supports Bramham’s
(2008, p. 9) contention that ‘‘Leisure Studies has rarely had the confidence to voice
its own independent detached vision of ‘the leisure society’ or make a strong case for
the intrinsic value of leisure scholarship and research.’’
Regarding the inaccuracies in the contemporary recollections of the thesis: the
discussion of Myth 1, that portrayals of the leisure society in the 1960s and 1970s all
involved visions of the future, established that, in fact, some proponents of the leisure
society believed that it had already arrived. Thus, if their position is to be critiqued, it
requires discussion of their views of conditions in the 1960s and 1970s, rather than of
their visions of the future. Discussion of Myth 4 indicated that not all definitions of
the leisure society were based on quantitative predictions regarding working hours:
some were qualitative, concerned with the cultural significance of leisure in people’s
lives. The definitional statements from the 1960s and 1970s of Roberts and
 World Leisure Journal 223

Dumazedier quoted in the paper are remarkably similar to more recent statements
about the role of leisure in contemporary postmodern culture. For example, Tony
Blackshaw has stated:
It is my contention that in the liquid modern world we live in, which is founded first and
foremost on freedom, leisure moves steadily into its position as the principal driving
force underpinning the human goal of satisfying our hunger for meaning and our thirst
for giving our lives a purpose. This is the job leisure was always cut out for . . . But . . . it
had to wait a long time, until the last few decades of the twentieth century to be precise,
to secure this function, which has hitherto been occupied by work. (Blackshaw, 2010,
p. 120)
It is nevertheless true, as discussion of Myth 4 shows, that most of the definitions of
the leisure society were explicitly or implicitly quantitative, involving continuing
reductions in paid working hours. However, the discussion of Myth 5 shows two
main things. First, that most leisure society proponents did not themselves present
specific predictions of reductions in working hours or refer to the published
predictions which existed in the literature. Second, while it is well known, with the
advantage of hindsight, that the typical prediction of an average full-time paid work
week of 30 hours by the year 2000 proved to be inaccurate, the predictions were
exaggerations in their own terms because they relied on pre
World War II trends and
failed to take account of changes in the composition of the workforce which were
well underway in the 1960s and 1970s.
As noted in the introduction to the paper, discussion of the leisure society idea
did not end in 1979. Apart from recollections, accurate or otherwise, the period from
1980 has been marked by continuing debate on the future of work and leisure (for
example, Aronowitz & DiFazio, 1994; Beck, 2000; Cross, 1989; Jenkins & Sherman,
1979, 1981; Rifkin, 1995; Sherman, 1986), critiques of the leisure society thesis (e.g.
Clarke & Critcher, 1985, pp. 1
5; Rojek, 1985, 2010a, 2010b; Seabrook, 1988); and
new contributions to the thesis (e.g. Corijn, 1987; Molitor, 2000, 2008a, b; Stebbins,
1999). Doing justice to this ongoing discussion will be the task of the follow-up
paper.

Notes
1. The most consistent contemporary critic, Chris Rojek, uses the term ‘‘leisure society
thesis,’’ although few of the leisure society proponents develop their ideas to the level of a
testable thesis. Others have used the term ‘‘leisure society project,’’ which can be seen as
similarly inflated. The terms ‘‘idea,’’ ‘‘notion,’’ ‘‘proposition’’ or ‘‘concept’’ are arguably
more appropriate for many of the treatments in the literature, but ‘‘leisure society thesis’’
seems to be the current consensus term.
2. A number of alternative terms are used in the literature but, unless indicated by authors, the
following are deemed to be interchangeable: leisure society; leisured society; society of
leisure; leisure-orientated society; era of leisure; civilisation of leisure; age of leisure; free-
time society.
3. In a number of articles, the term ‘‘leisure society’’ is used in the title but then not discussed
in the text (Bates, 1971; Denney, 1959; Stainbrook, 1972). Some refer to the fact that the
leisure society is being discussed or predicted by others but provide no references (Darwin,
1956; Jubenville, 1976; Knapp, 1969; Martin, 1967; Obermeyer, 1971; Smith, Parker, &
Smith, 1973), or provide references which are inaccurate or untraceable (Bendiner, 1957;
Bosserman, 1971; Brightbill, 1960).
4. Neulinger’s initial statement on the leisure society appeared in 1974 (Neulinger, 1974) but
was developed more fully in Neulinger (1981). Although the latter falls outside the 1960
79
224 A.J. Veal

framework of this paper, it is included because it seems to be intellectually part of the 1960s/
70s tradition.
5. Dumazedier’s comment refers to Denis de Rougemont’s (1957a) paper ‘‘L’Ere des loisirs
commence’’ (‘‘The era of leisure begins’’). The paper is an extract from de Rougement’s
(1957b) book L’Aventure Occidentale de L’Homme (The Western Adventure of Man). The
term ‘‘Golden Age’’ of leisure is not used; the term ‘‘era of leisure’’ is used in the title of the
article, but not at all in the body of the text, or in the book from which the extract is taken.
Neither does he speak of ‘‘the magical vanishing of all social problems.’’
6. The Society for the Reduction of Human Labor no longer appears very active and seems to
have been subsumed under the Shorter Work Time Group (www.swt.org).

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