Social Differences in Leisure Boredom and its Consequences for Life Satisfaction Among Young People

In recent years we have seen a growing interest in young people’s leisure time. Since leisure boredom is consistently associated with different emotional and societal problems, concerns about the occurrence of leisure boredom are an integral part of this interest. Against that background, this paper studies social variation in boredom during leisure time and its consequences for life satisfaction among pupils following secondary education in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium; N = 1598). In general girls, younger pupils and pupils who are enrolled in vocational education experience leisure boredom more often. In-depth analyses, however, show interesting interaction effects between these characteristics. In addition, leisure boredom correlates positively with a weak social network and a lack of parental monitoring. After taking these characteristics into account there remains no direct relationship between material and cultural deprivation and the occurrence of leisure boredom. We also find that leisure boredom, even after taking into account many other characteristics of young people’s social, economic and cultural living environment, significantly predicts low life satisfaction. In the conclusion we discuss the implications of our findings.