Leisure Inequality: Comparing Same-Sex and Different-Sex Couples in the United States

Eric Stone , University of Maryland
Liana C. Sayer, University of Maryland

Amounts and types of leisure are behavioral indicators of health and social integration that are linked with gender and social class disparities in health. Intersecting influences of sexuality and gender have been overlooked, despite evidence sexuality affects leisure preferences and constraints, and health outcomes. We use 2003-2017 American Time Use Survey data to examine leisure activity differences between cohabiting or married gay men, lesbian women, and heterosexual women and men. We find gay men report less sedentary and socially isolated leisure than heterosexual men, but more than lesbian women. Lesbian women also report more sedentary and socially isolated leisure compared with heterosexual women. However, sociodemographic differences account for associations of sexuality with leisure within gender, but do not explain leisure disparities comparing gay men and lesbian women. Our work contributes by using an intersectional lens to advance the evidence base about the complex connections between social disadvantage and leisure disparities.

See paper

 Presented in Session 217. Gender and Sexual Minority Families