Leisure Lifestyles of Chinese Immigrants in the South Bay Area
Lifestyle is generally referred to as “a way of living,” which takes into account how people spend their time, what they consider important, and their opinions and attitudes towards various issues. Lifestyle is an important theme in the study of choice behavior, particularly in marketing research. Numerous research results have shown that people’s preference behavior can be predicted by their lifestyle. As a result, it would seem logical to surmise that people’s choice of leisure activities could be predicted by their leisure lifestyle. This study had two objectives. The first was to test the Chinese Leisure Lifestyle (CLL) instrument developed by Yen et al. (2002). The second was to explore the leisure lifestyle of Chinese immigrants in the south bay area of California. Chinese immigrants were selected due to the vast number that live in the area, plus the lack of any systematically developed knowledge base regarding the leisure behavior of this culture. The sample consisted of randomly selected Chinese adults living in the south bay area. Participants received a cover letter, self-administered questionnaire, and a self-stamped return envelope. Of the 682 questionnaires distributed, 157 were returned, for a response rate of 23 percent. The questionnaire consisted of the 60-item CLL instrument, a question on why they choose a leisure activity, and basic demographic information. Each item in the instrument was measured by a 6-point Likert-type scale that ranged from 1=strongly agree to 6=strongly disagree. Participants included 120 females (76 percent) and 37 males (24 percent), and the majority (52 percent) were between 36 to 45 years old. This research received approval from the Human Subjects-Institutional Review Board of a bay area university. Factor analysis revealed a nine-factor solution for the CLL instrument, which explained 65 percent of the variance. The nine factor labels were: religious leisure, house keeping, personalized leisure, eating, family leisure, Internet, variety, watching TV, and sports. On a scale of 1 to 10, respondents also indicated the most important reason for choosing a leisure activity was interest (8.80), happiness (8.52), health (8.4), and risk (8.02). In sum, this study explored the leisure lifestyle of Chinese immigrants in the south bay area. Knowledge gained from this study would contribute to the understanding of leisure participation of ethnic groups. Future research may concentrate on how leisure lifestyles are associated with choice of leisure activities.