A society that has leisure more and more as a basic need. The evolution of leisure seen by the Portuguese perspective.

Leisure is currently seen as a social value of reference. Perceived and valued as a way of rest, but simultaneously of fun, development and personal formation, leisure affects a significant part of our free time and our free will. In this article, particular attention is given to the explication and the integration of the concepts of working time, free time and leisure time. It is valued the interpretation given to leisure and the consecutive changes that brought us to the current understanding of leisure practices. Various perspectives of socioeconomic interpretation of leisure valuation, from the civilization of leisure to the societies of free time, consumption, spectacle, fun, postmodern and hypermodern, are discussed. In view of the enormous diversity of interpretations, a synthesis work is carried out on the meanings of the relations between the socioeconomic and the leisure elements.