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Leisure for Working Women: An Indian Scenario

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Abstract

Leisure is an experience that gives one pleasure and happiness without any restriction or bondage. Indian women feel pleasure in very simple activities including rest, socializing, and entertainment. Activities during leisure need not be productive but they make better use of free time. There are positive associations between quality time spent in leisure activities and life satisfaction. But for many Indian women, leisure remains fragmented (interruption in leisure due to other responsibilities e.g. attending to children/husband etc.) and secondary (refers to leisure that is combined with non-leisure activities). The empirical evidence in this paper highlights the importance of leisure, identifies the constraints experienced and their effects on the well-being of Indian working women as they carry out multiple tasks at the same time. This paper is an attempt to establish an association between age, type of family, monthly income and job type with leisure activities, constraints, health benefits of leisure and time management of Indian women who work in the field of education. It is found that the Indian working women spend their free time in shopping, solo TV watching, spending time with family, spiritual practices, gardening, sewing and physical exercise. The study indicates a significant association between monthly income and job type with the health benefits of leisure such as happiness and life satisfaction. India’s working women save time for their leisure by doing multiple tasks at the same time.

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Correspondence to Anju Beniwal.

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Beniwal, A. Leisure for Working Women: An Indian Scenario. Int J Sociol Leis 5, 359–371 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41978-022-00112-y

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