ALL WORK AND NO PLAY?: LEISURE PATTERNS OF WORKING WOMEN IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

There has been an increasing proportion of women entering the labour force of Singapore in the last two decades. This group of employed women not only have to work outside the home, but return home each night to housework and child care. This involvement in housework and child care responsibilities could be due to their socialized roles as 'wife-mother' being more important than their new 'provider' role. This conventional attitude results in wage-earning women allocating a considerable amount of available time to their family and household responsibilities after their paid work hours. This 'double-day' workload often results in a significant reduction in the availability of potential time for leisure and self-development. This academic exercise is an exploratory attempt to examine the leisure patterns of Chinese working women in Singapore, drawing a comparison between single and married women. This study examines the effects of employment, household responsibilities and motherhood on the leisure patterns of these working women. It is hoped that the findings in this study will contribute in some way to reconciling the seemingly conflicting demands of work and home, in turn enhancing working women's leisure.