How Farm Housewives observe Leisure (Part 1) Leisure Time

• Published in: Journal of Home Economics of Japan Vol. 24; no. 2; pp. 151 - 156
• Main Author: SUZUKI, Toshiko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Japanese
• Published: The Japan Society of Home Economics 20.04.1973
• ISSN: 0449-9069; 1884-7870
• DOI: 10.11428/jhej1951.24.151

Farm housewives play an important part in farm work. How do they regard leisure ? How much leisure time do they have? Are they contented with it? A questionnaire was administered to two groups of housewives for comparison : one is of housewives of farm households in an agricultural village in Niigata Prefecture, and the other those of wage-earning classes in an adjacent city. 1. In the busy farming season, average leisure time per day is very short (one hour or so), and the difference among age groups is small. In the slack season, the older housewives have more leisure time. Difference in leisure time between housewives in their twenties and fifties is 100 min. or more. This is due to the fact that the younger wives take jobs in addition to the farm work. The correlation coefficient for the rate of employment and the length of leisure time has a negative value very close to one. 2. This study was carried out in July, September, and November. The subjects have the longest leisure time in November and the shortest in September. As for the younger age group who has less leisure time, the seasonal variation of the length of leisure time is comparatively small. 3. The leisure time allowed to farm housewives is from one half to two thirds of that to city housewives. 4. The number of satisfied wives varies according to the length of their leisure time. In the agricultural districts, the number of dissatisfied wives is several times as large as that of in the city.