Leisure during the 20th century
Australia, with its history of less than 300 years has undergone significant amount of events, changes, hardship and moments of Jubilant and Triumphant as a Country. Perhaps the most difficult time for Australia was during the time when the Economic Depression had taken place during 1930. During this time, Australia had suffered through high amounts of unemployed people, low profit, poverty and loss the chance for economic growth.
Unemployment was already a crucial issue prior to the coming of the economic depression, nearly 10 precent of the population of Australia was unemployed. However when the economic depression finally hit Australia, the amount of people unemployed doubled and unemployment reached its peak in 1932 where unemployment reached 32 precent of the population of Australia. Furthermore unprofessional workers had no choice but to perform work at uncomfortable and dangerous situations and were paid very little. Workers were often required to participate in labour such as building and construction or mechanical and maintenance industry. The middle class workers consisting of mainly professional workers and white collars usually undertook with little to no labour and received a handsome amount of salary.
Leisure activities today is somewhat similar but diverse when compared to leisure during the 20th century, technology such as computers were non-existent and people did not have much spare time due to work.
Leisure during the economical was almost non-existent to the working class. Unlike today where leisure is embodied into our lifestyle, leisure during the early 20th century was very uncommon. The working class earned little money, so little that they did could only barely keep themselves alive. Some of the working class did however; engage in vices such as crime, prostitution and Gambling. Gambling during the great depression was extremely popular with the working class as it offered a way for the social class to gain a significant amount of money in a short amount of time. The temptation of money lured the middle class into giving away most of their income away.