Cultural Practices and Preferences for Labour, Leisure and Learning

Leisure time is usually taken as different from working and learning time. However, the content of this leisure time can be heterogenous. Notably, what people are doing during their leisure time can underline an order for their preferences for labour, leisure and learning. The content of leisure time is here conceived through cultural practices, which are defined in a broad way: all free time activities are included. The main purpose of this article is to map cultural practices in order to explain what individuals prefer between labour, leisure and learning. Hence what is usually conceived as leisure time could be split into three parts. The article is structured as follow. First, a survey of the uses of time out of work is considered. This underlines that leisure time can be integrated to labour. Second, I present a theoretical model to identify on one hand preferences for labour, leisure and learning, and on the other hand how these preferences can be influenced by cultural practices. Third, the Culture 2009 data set (Ministry of Culture – Luxembourg and CEPS/INSTEAD) is presented. It catches in deep the various uses of time out of work, and offers variables to calculate hours of work as well as a proxy for learning time. Fourth, an empirical application is presented, combining both calculation (to identify preferences) and econometrics (to identify the effect of cultural practices on preferences).