The Higher the Education, the Less Leisure Time? - An Empirical Analysis from CTUS

Leisure activities play a crucial role in promoting physical and mental health, enhancing family cohesion, fostering personal development, and facilitating social interactions, ultimately improving overall quality of life. Education, as a significant determinant of leisure activities, influences individual leisure time through the development of human capital, time management skills, and gender role perceptions. Using data from the first China Time Use Survey (CTUS) of residents of China, this paper systematically investigates the differences in leisure time allocation among working groups aged 25–54 that have different education levels and empirically analyzes the differences in residents’ leisure time and their influence mechanisms using the Tobit model.The study first finds that residents’ leisure patterns are relatively homogeneous, and leisure is dominated by activities that require media. Moreover, education can significantly influence the type of leisure activities in which the population participates, with the higher education group engaging more in active leisure activities, such as using the Internet and reading books. Second, education has a significant positive effect on leisure time: the higher an individual’s level of education, the longer the leisure time. Differences in residents’ leisure time due to education level mainly comes from activities that require media. Third, where education level is the same, residents’ gender difference more significantly impact leisure time, with men having significantly more leisure time than women, and gender differences associated with leisure time become greater as an individual’s education level increases. Based on the above conclusions, this paper proposes policy recommendations from three perspectives: optimizing the diversity of leisure activities for residents, reducing the gender gap in leisure time, and balancing the allocation of leisure resources between urban and rural residents. The recommendations include increasing the number of public cultural facilities such as libraries and museums, implementing parental leave policies, and organizing traditional festivals and folk activities.