Leisure and Life-Styles of the Elderly: Outline of a Research Programme

The leisure of the elderly has not played an important role in gerontological research in Germany up to now. Yet interest in it has increased along with the discussions about the reduction of life-time working hours that are taking place in all the Western industrialised countries. But the little research on this topic, if any, is often of a quantitative kind; it is primarily limited to the general analysis of leisure activities and does not sufficiently differentiate between social groups within the elderly. Thus in this area of gerontology much ground has to be made up in the way of research, which, if carried out properly, may also contribute to further theoretical developments in gerontology. This means mainly that more qualitative research should be conducted. The question is then what kind of approach should be adopted in order to compensate for the deficiencies of gerontology in the field of leisure and, in addition, to bring out the main points for further development. This paper is concerned with such an approach and its application to an empirical study.