Asian Basic and Applied Research Journal

Rapid urbanization and higher incomes have changed how people in India's big cities spend their money. This study considers leisure expenditure as a significant indicator of urban lifestyle, rather than merely an inconsequential expense. Current research on household consumption in India predominantly emphasizes food, health, or overall non-food expenditures, with insufficient focus on leisure expenditures as a separate category. Moreover, leisure spending is rarely analysed through a sustainability lens, despite its growing environmental and social footprint in large cities. Mumbai, as India’s financial and commercial capital, provides an appropriate urban context to examine these emerging consumption patterns. The paper analyzes household data from Mumbai spanning 2022 to 2025, investigating the socio-economic factors that affect leisure expenditure and elucidating the relationship between these trends and sustainable urban development. The case study of leisure spending of urban households in Mumbai between 2022 and 2025 shows that the consumption behaviour definitely shifts in the post-pandemic world. Leisure spending which encompasses expenditure on eating out, recreation and vacations comes out as a growing proportion of household budgets, which indicate economic recovery as well as change in the lifestyles of the urban population. Regression diagnostics show a moderate explanatory capacity over the four years, and the values of R 2 vary between 0.151 in 2025 and 0.290 in 2022. Although leisure spending is discretionary in nature, and experiencing behavioural heterogeneity, the values indicate that the socio-economic and demographic factors play a significant role in explaining differences in leisure consumption. Placing leisure spending in a sustainability context, the paper has indicated that discretionary consumption is an area that should be re-conceived as a policy-relevant area. Sustainable leisure does not mean limitations to pleasure but is the repositioning of city consumption that would ensure that economic activity, social inclusion and environmental stewardship are balanced.