Unterschiede im Freizeitverhalten: Ausdruck sozialer Ungleichheitsstrukturen oder Ergebnis individualisierter Lebensführung?

Leisure is an important domain of life in modern societies. To find out who participates in what leisure activities, two different theoretical approaches are available. Classical inequality theories posit that differences in leisure activities are strongly connected with social position. In contrast, lifestyle theory concepts argue that socio-economic differences have lost their impact with the overall rise in living standards and that leisure activities are increasingly in-dependent of socio-economic determinants. With data from the German Socio-Economic Panel study (SOEP) we can empirically test which theoretical concept best describe differ-ences in leisure activities. By using random-effects-models for the years 1990 and 2003, we observe, that individual leisure activities depend strongly on income and education along with age and gender. Over time, the influence of income also increases. In sum, it appears that differences in leisure are indeed still strongly connected with socio-economic status.