Leisure Expenditures of Retired and Near-Retired Households‪.‬

Over the past few decades, the United States has undergone significant sociological and economic transitions. Among the many changes, several have combined to focus attention on time as an input to activities that employ goods to provide satisfaction. Studies of time use have found that, as market work-time has decreased, leisure time has increased (Juster, 1985; Stafford & Duncan, 1985). Moreover, the rate of growth in per capita leisure expenditures (227%) far exceeded the rate of growth in per capita income (138%) between 1939 and 1988 (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1989). With older Americans having greater time available to combine with purchased leisure goods (Robinson & Godbey, 1997) and purchased leisure goods becoming a larger proportion of consumer budgets, research on the relationship between retirement and leisure good expenditures is needed. The transition to retirement forces elderly households to adjust to an altered economic environment. Permanent withdrawal from full-time market work concomitantly reduces household income and increases the time available for leisure (McConnel & Deljavan, 1983). Thus, to maximize their economic well being, retired households adjust consumption patterns to reflect these evolving constraints, defined by time and money, as well as their preferences in retirement. Other empirical studies on the retired report that retired households spend a larger proportion of their marginal dollar on leisure goods as compared to the non-retired (Rubin & Nieswiadomy's, 1994; 1995) and the preferences of retirees for leisure activities have shifted over time (Nieswiadomy & Rubin, 1995).