The Association Between Family Leisure and Family Quality of Life: A Meta-Analysis of Data from Parents and Adolescents

The body of family leisure research has grown over the past 25 years; however, efforts to quantitatively synthesize that body of literature have not been made. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis of published and unpublished literature reporting on parent and adolescent child data regarding shared leisure experiences and family quality-of-life indicators across k = 23 articles identified from a broad, systematic search of literature. Using random effects, we measured the associations of (a) family leisure participation with family quality of life and (b) family leisure satisfaction with family quality of life. Results indicated significant associations of small to moderate effect sizes in both models. Moderating variables of marital status and nationality produced varying levels of influence on the effect size of the association between family leisure satisfaction and family quality.