Any definition that distinguishes “leisure” from “work” is a matter of judgment. Some
work activities may generate direct utility, whether at a formal job or while cooking and
shopping. Similarly, such leisure activities as reading a book or watching TV may add to one’s
human capital or be directly job related and therefore be considered market substitutes. Our
response to this ambiguity has been to present a wide range of evidence. We paid particular
attention to the conceptual and measurement issues related to child care. We also used several
definitions of leisure and separated out particular activities. The decline in home production and
the time‐series and cross‐sectional patterns in leisure are generally robust to these variations.
Regardless of one’s preferred definition of leisure, the fact remains that large changes have
occurred in the allocation of time over the last 40 years. Many of these changes concern activities
away from the market, making conclusions drawn solely from observations on market‐work‐
hours potentially misleading.