The Influence of Daily Leisure Activities on Stress and Work-Family Balance

For many years, work-life literature has focused almost exclusively on the interaction between the work and family domains, without much consideration for the time spent in-between. This daily diary study examines the influence of time spent engaged in daily leisure activities on the health and well-being of full-time workers through its observed effect on daily mood, as well as day-to-day perceptions of stress, work-family conflict (WFC), and work-family balance (WFB). This study contributes to previous literature by providing day-level analysis of these variables, thereby offering a closer examination of their interrelated natures. Building on research on mood repair and stress recovery, we hypothesize that time spent on daily leisure is positively associated with positive affect (PA) and perceptions of WFB, and negatively associated with negative affect (NA) and perceptions of stress and WFC