The importance of work and leisure : cross-national comparisons

Abstract

The present paper examines the relative importance of work and leisure in the context of other major life roles, following the approach adopted by the Work Importance Study (WIS). This international network of research projects was developed under the co-ordination of Donald Super, an outstanding leader in the field of vocational guidance, and involving several countries in Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, and Australia. The results of that project have been published in a book entitled Life Roles, Values, and Careers. International Findings of the Work Importance Study (Super and Sverko, 1995). In this context, I will present some cross-national comparisons concerning work and leisure based on the relative rankings of the means of Participation and Commitment measures of the WIS Salience Inventory in different Portuguese, Japanese, American, and Italian samples. Implications of these findings for the practice of guidance and for further research are also discussed.