Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
WORLD LEISURE JOURNAL, 2025 (ESCI)
Leisure has been acknowledged as an important contributor to human development and well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic has constrained leisure practices to an unprecedented level, raising new concerns and opportunities for practitioners and researchers. This international study aimed to describe how leisure was experienced during the pre-pandemic period and during lockdowns and explore the association of leisure satisfaction with sociodemographic variables. A total of 1969 individuals from Brazil, China, Hungary, Turkey, and Portugal (43.32% male; 56.32% female; 0.20% other; mean age = 30.36; SD = 13.49) were surveyed through the Qualtrics platform. We conducted descriptive statistics, McNemar's chi square, and Wilcoxon tests to assess differences in distributions and Linear Mixed Models to explore predictors of leisure satisfaction. Significant differences were observed between the leisure activities, companies, and places before the COVID-19 and during the lockdowns. Global results show that during the lockdowns the frequency of technologies and personal care activities increased, and leisure activities were mostly performed at home and with family. Greater satisfaction with leisure during the lockdowns was associated with being female, working for profit, very good or excellent psychological and physical health, sportive activities, and outdoor leisure places. Suggestions are made on strategies to rethink leisure in a post-pandemic era.