The Allocation of Time to Sports and Cultural Activities: An Analysis of Individual Decisions, pp. 245-264

Cristina Muñiz
Plácido Rodríguez
María J. Suárez

Participation in sports and participation in cultural activities are usually considered separately in economic empirical studies. Because both of these activities are forms of leisure, this paper analyzes the determination of their consumption as joint and related decisions. Our theoretical framework is the neoclassical theory of the allocation of time. Our empirical analysis begins with a Constant Elasticity Substitution (CES) utility function, which we use to estimate the decision to participate in sports and cultural activities in the first stage. Conditional on the results of this stage, we then estimate the amount of time allocated to these activities. The data come from the Time Use Survey implemented by the National Statistics Office (INE) in 2002-2003. In this survey, the time allocated to sports and cultural activities in a single day is collected for each individual in detail. The results reveal a complementary relationship between the two activities and suggest that males and females exhibit different behaviors.