012-01: Leisure Participation and Parent Well-Being in Nuclear, Stepparent, and Single-Parent Families

Family leisure has been linked to quality of family life; however, family leisure research has focused almost exclusively on nuclear, two-parent families. The Ecology of Family Experiences framework positions family leisure outcomes such as well-being as the product of Family and Activity factors over Time. We evaluate differences in family leisure participation and parents’ well-being during family leisure by family structure using a large, nationally representative data sample of parents from the American Time Use Survey (N = 69,199). Single parents report a large deficit in home-based family leisure participation, and higher levels of positive affect (i.e., well-being) during leisure.