‘My Husband Says I’m Too Old for Dancing’: Women, Leisure and Life Cycles

Abstract

It is virtually impossible to study women’s leisure without setting it in the context of their lives as a whole. Life-cycle stage has an important effect on the what, when and why of sport and leisure. Nowhere is this more evident than in the analysis of sport, where participation starts to decline after age 19 more rapidly for women than men (Social Trends 1985). Other leisure interests of women and the time devoted to them also change as women’s life-cycle stages alter; hence the leisure patterns of teenage girls and that of mothers with school-age children are frequently very different.