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Children’s Leisure Activities and Subjective Well-Being: A Comparative Analysis of 16 Countries

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Handbook of Leisure, Physical Activity, Sports, Recreation and Quality of Life

Part of the book series: International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life ((IHQL))

Abstract

The way that children use their leisure time and how this affects their well-being are topical and much-debated issues. This chapter focuses on children’s leisure time and activities in a sample of 16 countries across four continents, using data gathered through the international Children’s Worlds survey. It compares evidence on the relative balance of leisure time and other activities; looks in more detail at the ways in which children spend their leisure time and how this varies between and within countries; and explores the associations between leisure and subjective well-being. The results show that there is considerable diversity in patterns of children’s leisure time in different countries and this is partly linked to differences in national wealth. There is evidence of differences in children’s leisure activities according to gender, age and material deprivation across most of the countries in the sample. In particular, gender patterns are fairly similar across the diverse set of countries surveyed. Finally, there is evidence of a link between more frequent participation in reading and in sports and children’s higher overall subjective well-being. The chapter concludes with a discussion of implications of these findings and directions for future research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Project website: www.isciweb.org

  2. 2.

    Pearson correlation with GNI per capita = 0.49.

  3. 3.

    Pearson correlation with GNI per capita = 0.38.

  4. 4.

    Pearson correlation with GNI per capita = 0.65.

  5. 5.

    Pearson correlation with GNI per capita = −0.42.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, York, UK

    Gwyther Rees

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  1. Gwyther Rees
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CICS-UP and Master Program in Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad de Palermo, Argentina

    Lía Rodriguez de la Vega

  2. Physical Education Program, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Universidad Nacional de La Matanza, San Justo, Argentina

    Walter N. Toscano

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Rees, G. (2018). Children’s Leisure Activities and Subjective Well-Being: A Comparative Analysis of 16 Countries. In: Rodriguez de la Vega, L., Toscano, W. (eds) Handbook of Leisure, Physical Activity, Sports, Recreation and Quality of Life. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75529-8_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75529-8_3

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