A quota sample of 336 London residents was interviewed using a questionnaire designed to provide information about the respondents' leisure participation patterns and their personal and social characteristics. A comparison study was carried out with a sample of 414 residents from Brooklyn, New York. In both samples there were clearly identifiable groups of leisure activities and it was possible to describe the profile of participants in each group. The results for both London and New York indicate that leisure participation is related to individuals' gender and working status, their socioeconomic class and their family commitments. Comparisons of the activity groupings and their participant profiles across the two samples indicated that there were five sets of leisure participation choices which were common to both London and New York. The implications of these findings for the generalizability of leisure constructs are assessed.