Leisure in Later Life

This book analyses leisure choice as a complex concept, made more complicatedin later life than at any other time. The author posits that there are manyunanswered questions about the new booming generation of healthy, olderpeople, and this book asks what it is really like to be old at the beginning of the21st century in the United Kingdom, analysing leisure in older people in thecontext of the subtle politics of the day to day.Throughout the chapters, the author highlights the often missing depictions ofolder people who enjoy and enact bold, informed agency as part of their everydaylives. Drawing upon secondary data from the Mass Observation Archive, a socialthesis of leisure and ageing emerges that challenges the individualism inherent in‘active ageing.’ It is proposed that the idea of ‘active ageing’ creates complexconstraints to leisure as people strive to measure up to cultural expectations. Thestories in this book advocate for an appreciation and re-evaluation of passiveleisure in later life, and the enjoyment and freedom it can bring.The project is therefore useful to students and researchers of leisure studies,gerontology and sociology of ageing.