ABSTRACT
The chapter summarises the literature on the leisure society idea mainly published in the 1960s and 1970s, the era considered to be its heyday. It begins with an account of the main basis of the leisure proposals of the period, namely predictions of reduced working hours. The predictions were typically, and erroneously, based on working hours trends observed in the first half of the twentieth century, failing to note that the post-war rate of decline was slower. There was also a ‘millennial’ tendency to offer predictions for the year 2000. Discussions of the leisure society idea itself are divided into three groups: claims that the leisure society had already arrived; the anticipated leisure society; and the concept of a leisure society within society, as introduced in Chapter 1. Finally the chapter includes a review of quantitative and qualitative definitions of the leisure society, including some from outside the 1960s/1970s period. The review reveals not only a diversity of definitions, but also a lack of precision and detail.
