The rush hour: The character of leisure time and gender equity

The distribution of leisure time between the genders is contested. Becker's theory of specialization suggests that there is an underlying gender equit y in leisure, while the competing view suggests that women are now bearing a "dual burden" as both family providers and family carers. Using indicator s of the quantity and quality of leisure drawn from the Multinational Time Budget Data Archive and the Australian Time Use Survey, we find some suppor t for both views Although men and women have similar quantities of free tim e, when the character of leisure is considered the gap between genders reem erges.