I think the issue's become too complicated for the study.

For example, if I'm at the office but spend some of that time buying groceries on line, is that work or leisure? If I'm at home watching a movie but pause it to check my work email, or to answer a cell call from work, is that work or leisure?

My boss once told me that he had no problem at all with people like me taking some time out of the work day to pay bills online. Better than me leaving a half hour early to do it, in his eyes and, of course, it makes sense since I'm dealing with personal stuff but am actually AT WORK and thus likely to put that personal stuff aside if I'm needed for something. Better than me rushing out early to get to the bank before it closes like in the old days.

The thing is, I feel like my leisure, personal and work time are all incredibly intertwined at the moment. One activity never seems to be purely distinct from the other.

One more thing to point out: even if Americans do have more leisure time, and it's a dubious assertion, productivity is way up, so we're working harder when we're working.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Sandwichman is most likely onto something in the "leisure as a factor of production" series, and the fact that americans supposedly have more leisure while feeling more harried suggests we're on the downside of a laffer-style curve. There are obvious problems with trying to measure some kind of median national leisure level when so many of the employed are doing mandatory overtime (oops, is it overtime when you're an exempt employee and don't get paid for it?) at one end of the gamut and so many others are underemployed. And that's not even starting on all the folks who have mysteriously left the labor force. But even if you could do that, and do it well, definitions of labor and leisure that ignore workers' intentions are just crap. In the right job you can work 60-plus hours a week and feel relaxed and happy, pausing only now and then to marvel that someone is paying you to do what you'd do anyway. In the wrong job, getting through those 35 mandatory hours of physical presence pretty much destroys your soul.(And in an economy where the notion of employer loyalty doesn't even make people laugh, guess which of the above is a more likely descriptor.) At a more pedantic level, how harried you feel pretty much correlates with how much leisure you need just to survive (part of the sandwichman's point, and a definite part of the laffer-like effects). Good day at work, and I'm ready to cook dinner, bake some bread or some cookies for my officemates, maybe even clean the bathroom. A day of what looks like no leisure at all. Bad day at work, I'm going to pick up some pizza on the way home, eat in front of the TV, or maybe just go out to a bar and nurse a few pints till it's time to fall asleep. Look at how much more leisure I have!

As a certified Juliet Schor Kool-aid drinker, I greet this "news" with a certain amount of skepticism. Nowhere in the Economist article does it discuss whether the study looked at full-time workers alone, which is just about the only context in which the data supports the "good news" conclusion. Otherwise it could be accounted for by baby boomers retiring, spouses opting out of the workforce to stay home with kids, and un- and under-employment. It's not "good news" that un- and under-employed people who don't want to be have lots of leisure time. Let's isolate the full-time salaried workers (no statutory overtime pay) and see how THEY are doing. I'll even allow a discount for posting on Internet discussions during work hours (ahem).