Recreation and Leisure

The definition of leisure and its distinction from free time, recreation, and more important, work is a consideration that only modern societies confront. The same applies to industrialized societies in their early stages of development. Groups of people who have addressed their basic survival needs and have not yet developed complex economic structures are less equipped to engage in leisure activities, and therefore, the nuanced differences between free time, recreation, and leisure play a less prominent role in everyday life.

In these societies, there is limited free time to create opportunities for forming and refining collective identities. Yet as population numbers rise, increases in productivity run parallel to meet the needs of a changing society. Specialized divisions of labor and higher levels of productivity then increase ...