Nowadays, leisure services determine an increasing new way of tourism development. Tourism operators include more and more a large selection of leisure opportunities that reflect the principal way to delimit and differentiate their offers and furthermore to establish a stronger position in tourism market. The variety of leisure activities influences the creation of numerous possibilities of entertainment and in consequence knowing the meaningful factors of leisure’s influence would determine the premises for it. As a result this paper tries to analyze the influencing factors of leisure participation The time factor, or more important the free time represents a major component of leisure services, as these services take place in people’ free time, and the dimension and evolution of free time has a dramatic impact on leisure development.leisure, free time, behavior, trends

Catrinel Dridea

Gina Sztruten

English

Research Papers in Economics

Free time –the major factor of influence for leisure  
 
 
 
208 
FREE TIME –THE MAJOR FACTOR OF INFLUENCE  
FOR LEISURE 
 
Catrinel Dridea, Gina Sztruten
 * 
 
Abstract 
Nowadays, leisure services determine an increasing new way of tourism development. Tourism 
operators include more and more a large selection of leisure opportunities that reflect the principal way 
to delimit and differentiate their offers and furthermore to establish a stronger position in tourism 
market.  The  variety  of  leisure  activities  influences  the  creation  of  numerous  possibilities  of 
entertainment  and  in  consequence  knowing  the  meaningful  factors  of  leisure’s  influence  would 
determine the premises for it. As a result this paper tries to analyze the influencing factors of leisure 
participation The time factor, or more important the free time represents a major component of leisure 
services, as these services take place in people’ free time, and the dimension and evolution of free time 
has a dramatic impact on leisure development. 
  
Keywords: leisure, free time, behavior, trends 
 
JEL Classification: A12, L83, Z13 
 
1. Introduction 
   
Choosing  a  leisure  activity  is  based  on  a  serious  of  interconnected  reasons 
influenced by a few factors like [Torkilsen, 2005]: the individual factor: the personality, 
the abilities, the capacities, the stage in one’s life, the interests, etc; the circumstances and 
situation that individuals find themselves in: the social class, the job, the revenue, the work 
leisure time availability ,etc; the opportunities and support service available to the individual: 
facilities, resources, programs and its management, etc.    
 
2. The major influencing factors for leisure  
   
As presented before the main domain of interest can be underlined as personal 
and family influences, social and situational circumstances and opportunities. 
Specialist have concluded and presented the principle characteristic of each of 
                                                 
* Catrinel Dridea is Assistant Professor at the Romanian American University in Bucharest. E mail: 
stanescu_catrinel@yahoo.com. 
Gina  Sztruten  is  a  Ph.D  student  at  the  Academy  of  Economic  Studies  in  Bucharest.  E mail: 
lefter_gina@yahoo.com. 
This article is a result of the project „Doctoral Program and PhD Students in the education research 
and innovation triangle”. This project is co funded by European Social Fund through The Sectorial 
Operational  Programme  for  Human  Resources  Development  2007 2013,  coordinated  by  The 
Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies.  Romanian Economic and Business Review – Vol. 5, No. 1 
 
 
209 
those three categories as follows in the table below. 
From the first category, the personal factor determines greatly the way the leisure 
activities are perceived, understand and used. The personality, attitude, abilities forms 
an individual behavior with needs and desires for involving in the leisure activities 
and services. But all behavior is strongly based on age, gender and education and 
culture. 
The implication in leisure activities is more intense for children in their constant 
play and reduced for adults. Also is important the age and the moment in a life time 
cycle, for instance: a single person has more free time for leisure activities than a 
married  one  with  children.  Then  the  availability  of  free  time  also  determines 
differences in leisure based on leisure criteria. 
The argument of a family with children can influence the implication degree of 
gender in leisure, as a woman takes care of children and therefore has little time for 
leisure activities. In a large spectrum it appears that the participation rates do not 
differ substantially for men and women, though women tend to take part more in 
cultural activities and men tend to take part in more active activities such as sports. 
The  level  of  education,  its  characteristics  the  length  of  it  also  influence  the 
engagement in a particularly leisure activity such as arts, hobbies, etc. that require 
special knowledge skills. 
 
Table 1. The influencing factors of leisure 
 
 
Personal Social and circumstantial Opportunity factors 
Age Occupation Resources availability 
Stagy in life cycle Income Facilities 
Gender Disposable income Awareness 
Marital status Material wealth and goods Perception of opportunity 
Dependents and ages Car ownership and mobility Recreation service 
Will and purpose of life Time availability Distribution of facilities 
Personal obligation Duties and obligations Access and location 
Resourcefulness Home and social environment Choice of activity 
Leisure perception Friends and peer groups Transport 
Attitudes and motivation Social role and contacts Costs 
Interest and preoccupation Environment factors Management 
Skills and ability Mass leisure factors Marketing 
Personality and confidence Education and attainment Programming 
Culture born into Population factors Organization 
Upbringing and background Social accessibility  
 Political policies 
 
Source: Gershuny J., 2000, Changing times: work and leisure in a postindustrial society, 
Oxford University Press; Free time –the major factor of influence for leisure  
 
 
 
210 
 
From the second category the income is a major factor for election a type of leisure 
activity and it is not surprising that since income correlates with social class and 
education level, a higher income group has a greater participation in leisure activities.  
The social class regards to people that have kindly the same type of occupation 
with similar type of income determining a specific characteristic of influencing factors 
for leisure behavior. Of course, the higher position in a social participates in a higher 
degree  than  lower  position  members. The  attitudes  and values  of  people  in  social 
settings are seen as enabling or inhibiting factors regarding the leisure behavior. 
From the third category involving opportunity, the perception of leisure provision 
such as the facilities and equipments, may influence the participation more then the 
other form of provision. The access and location of leisure facilities represents an 
important aspect of leisure choice. The marketing programs brought out in order to 
promote  several  leisure  activities,  the  management  of  those  activities  may  also 
influence more and more the leisure industry overall.  
Each of the characteristic presented has an importance, varying from less to 
high importance, but one of them plays a special part in leisure participation: the 
leisure time. 
 
3. The role of free time in the leisure industry  
 
The free time or leisure time is presented to be the amount of time that is not 
occupied with mandatory tasks, all the activities that can take place after the closure 
of  work  time  ones.  This  conception  of  free  time  is  generally  found  in  the 
industrialized societies that function after the dominator part of day the work hours. 
Hence, eliminating the work time we encounter the general free time  
Unfortunately the notion of free time has yet difficulties in describing its full 
essence. For instance, activities like taking care of children, gardening, cleaning the 
house, etc. that take place after work time, or regardless of the work represents or 
not the free time.  
Is there then, free time as in time used for doing nothing? 
The  specialists  come  up with  a  proper  classification  of  time  in  general,  like 
[Leitner, 2005]:  
Work  obligated time involving constrains and commitments; 
Personal care  underlines the time used for maintenance, and self care; 
Leisure jobs – regards the activities that are freely chosen, but are important only 
by their result, such as gardening as a free activity, but the interest being the profit 
made by exhibiting or selling the products obtained; 
Pure work – is the opposite of the latest one, meaning that the activities are 
obligated like work , but the result are intrinsic rather that extrinsic as before, for 
example a professional player determined to play by the legal contract, but play only 
for his enjoyment; Romanian Economic and Business Review – Vol. 5, No. 1 
 
 
211 
Work job – regards the activities obligated to do, the constrains but motivated by 
both extrinsic a intrinsic criteria;  
Pure job activities refer to the activities constrained to realize and with the only 
purpose  of  the  extrinsic results. At  first  glace,  these  types  of  time  activities  may 
present  a  genuine  prospective  over  leisure  time.  But  in  regards  to  them,  some 
activities are interchangeable and there for the results are scrambled. 
Other theories imply that time can be divided in four categories like [Jenkins, 
Pigram, 2003]: the time for work, the time for leisure, or free time, the time for unpaid work, 
and the time for personal care. 
Other  specialists  indicate  different  perspective  on  the  free  time  concepts  as 
[Stanciulescu, 2006]:  
1. leisure time represents un behavior pattern rather then a specific category and have a 
serious of downsides like: takes into consideration the individual behavior in the 
detriment of collective one; offers the possibility to interchange the terms of play and 
time in the leisure component; leaves room for a subjective approach by unedifying 
the proper meaning of free time activities, and so on.;  
2. leisure time is considerate only in relation with the working time, with better results, but 
simplifying in a negative way the other types of time and their relations;  
3. leisure time is regarded in connection with the work time and the personal time, which 
includes an improvement to the general theory of free time;  
 4. leisure time is presented separately as time and as it’s specific activities. 
 
The  definition  of  leisure  ore  leisure  time  to  be  more  specific  has  great 
difficulties, the leisure term been also associates with time, entertainment, recreation, 
and  therefore  a  clear  classification  can  reflect  an  error.  More  than  that,  the 
delimitation of free time from other types of time can be subjective and perceived 
differently from one individual to another. 
Even though the leisure time has a problematic approach the essence of it has 
greater meaning for the general development of society, representing a barometer of 
technical civilization, progress, determined by the social and economic development 
of countries defining also the quality of life. The length of leisure time is strictly an 
indicator of a developed society were the work time has decreased and the increase 
of its productivity and progress. 
More  then  that,  the  leisure  time  represent  one  of  the  forth  factors  that 
influences the travel and tourism industry. As progress has developed in the general 
societies, the tendency for free time is to increase itself in the detriment of work 
hours. Event though the amount of actual leisure time is not expected to significantly 
increase in most developed countries over a short period of time, there are present 
some changes in more flexible working patterns, in the restructuring of work free 
time relationship. 
The change of free time in the general context of time has a positive perspective, 
but we must not ignore a serious of factor that can influence by decreasing or stabilizing Free time –the major factor of influence for leisure  
 
 
 
212 
the  free  time.  The  most  important  factor  is  represented  by  the  so  called  “limitless 
materialism” meaning that people desire more material goods and therefore they tend to 
work more to achieve that. Other factor like service development, the change of family 
role can of course diminish the expansion of free time.  
The change of time use can be seen in the table below concerning the history of 
society types: 
 
Table 2. A developmental typology of time use 
 
 
Pre modern societies 
Time – for the majority long hours of substance work  
Status  small elite “leisure class” remainder undifferentiated by time use 
Gender – strong differentiation by task 
 
Industrialized societies  
Time – long hours of work for subordinate hours 
Status – single cleavage, multiple derogation for subordinate classes 
Gender – strong differentiation by task 
 
Modern industrial (post industrial) societies 
Time – declining work, providing opportunities for increasing consumption 
Status  – converging work time  patterns,  multiple cross cutting  cleavages  in 
leisure 
Gender – gradually diminishing differentiation 
Source: Roberts K., 2006, Leisure and the contemporary society, Cabi Publishing; 
 
  Over the years statistics have shown that leisure time has increased, but it is 
important  to  understand  the  leisure  time  development  in  comparison  with  work 
time, personal time, transport, and so on. The structure of time budget over two 
decades is presented as follows: 
 
Table 3. The structure of time budget in the years 1800 and 2000 
 
1800  2000 
Free time =3 years (8%)  Free time =19 years (27%) 
Work = 11 years (30%)  Work = 8 years (11%) 
Transport = 2 years (6%)  Transport =6 years (6%) 
School  and  childhood  =  5  years 
(14%) 
School  and  childhood  =  8  years 
(11%) 
Personal time = 15 years (42%)  Personal time = 31 years (42%) 
Total = 36 years  Total = 72 years 
Source: Ioncica M., 2004, Economia Serviciilor, Third edition, Uranus Publishing, 
Bucharest; Romanian Economic and Business Review – Vol. 5, No. 1 
 
 
213 
 
During two centuries, the free time has grown from 3 years to 19 year, in the 
condition of almost doubling the expectancy of life. This increase is based on the 
decrease of work time as a result of the growing of labor productivity in the primary 
and secondary sector of activity.  
Also the progress has been introduced inclusively in the third sector. It can also 
be noted the similar percent of personal time in the total calculation, but also the fact 
that the personal time has grown. 
The increases in space mobility and distances, the educational need to develop 
have determined larger numbers in transport and education in school. 
   
In conclusion, the free time has a significant importance in determining the 
leisure behavior, the leisure involvement and the leisure future prospective. Even 
though work leisure time relationship is still ambiguous defined or their limits are 
blurry, the intent to define free time as a particular component has captured the 
attention of specialists. The role of major element in leisure definition free time will 
increase its meaning over the years. 
 
References 
 
Gershuny J., 2000, Changing times: work and leisure in a postindutrial society, Oxford 
University Press;  
Goeldner Ch, Ritche B., 2005, Tourism – principles, practices, philosophies 10th ed., 
Edit. John Wiley & Sons, SUA;  
Harris D., Key concepts in leisure studies, SAGE Publishing, 2005; 
Ioncica  M.,  2004,  Economia  Serviciilor,  Third  edition,  Uranus  Publishing, 
Bucharest; 
Jenkins J., Pigram J., 2003, Encyclopedia of leisure and outdoor recreation, Routledge 
Publishing, London; 
Leitner M., Leitner S., 2004, Leisure enhancement, Haworth Press Inc, New York; 
Roberts K., 2006, Leisure and the contemporary society, Cabi Publishing;  
Stănciulescu  G.,  Jugănaru  I.D.,  2006,  AnimaŃia   i  animatorul  în  turism,Uranus 
Publishing, Bucharest; 
Torkildsen G., 2005, Leisure and recreation management, Routledge Publishing; 
Dridea Catrinel, Lefter Gina, The impact of shopping tourism on the future of 
leisure services, Oradea, 29 mai 2009 
 

Changing times: work and leisure in a postindutrial society, Oxford University Press; Goeldner Ch, Ritche B.,

FREE TIME –THE MAJOR FACTOR OF INFLUENCE FOR LEISURE

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FREE TIME –THE MAJOR FACTOR OF INFLUENCE FOR LEISURE

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