In today’s article, we’ll take a look at the fascinating American Time Use Survey (ATUS). The name of the survey is fairly self explanatory, but more about this source can be found at the end of the article. Let’s first take a look at a summary of the high-level time-use categories, based on the 2023 annual data.
- Personal care 9.84
- Eating and drinking 1.2
- Household activities 1.92
- Purchasing goods 0.66
- Helping household 0.5
- Helping nonhousehold 0.17
- Working 3.56
- Educational 0.39
- Organizational 0.24
- Leisure and sports 5.15
- Communication 0.16
- Other 0.21
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey, 2024.
Looking at how Americans spend their 24 hours on an average day (including weekends and holidays), personal care activities (which includes sleep) dominate at nearly 10 hours daily. Leisure and sports take up the second-largest chunk at about 5.2 hours, while work and work-related activities account for approximately 3.6 hours. Household activities consume almost 2 hours, and eating and drinking take up 1.2 hours. The data reveal that relatively little time is spent on educational activities (0.39 hours), caring for others outside the household (0.17 hours), or communication via phone and email (0.16 hours). This breakdown suggests that most people’s days are heavily weighted toward essential personal maintenance and leisure, with work forming the third major time component.
Differences by Age Group
As you would expect, the average daily hours spent on different activities vary by age group. The radar chart below demonstrates these differences.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey, 2024.
In order to make the chart more readable, I’ve plotted the z-scores as opposed to the actual values. A z-score is a number that tells you how far a data point is from the average, showing whether it’s above or below the average and by how much, in terms of standard deviations. Note that you can click on the legend items to remove one of the series from the plot, which I find helpful for comparing specific groups.
As expected, young adults (15-24) show extreme values in several categories: they spend significantly more time on education and personal care, but notably less time on household activities and shopping. The 65+ age group displays the most dramatic deviations from average time use, with significantly higher participation in leisure activities, organizational/religious activities, and eating & drinking, while showing a sharp drop in work-related activities. Middle-aged adults show the highest engagement in caring for household members and maintain high work hours, but have the lowest leisure time. A clear life-stage pattern emerges where time allocation shifts from education and personal care in youth, to work and family care in middle age, and finally to leisure and community engagement in retirement years.
Changes Over Time
The chart below highlights how time use for a few select categories has changed over the years.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey, 2024.
This chart reveals several notable shifts in how Americans spent their time from 2003 to 2023. Household activities show the highest absolute values among these categories, hovering around 1.7 hours per day before increasing notably to nearly 1.9 hours after 2019. Shopping and helping non-household members both show consistent downward trends, with shopping declining from 0.8 to 0.65 hours per day and help for non-household members dropping from 0.33 to 0.19 hours. Perhaps most striking is the sharp decline in organizational, civic, and religious activities following 2019, falling from a stable level of about 0.33 hours to 0.25 hours per day. Education time has also trended downward, particularly in recent years, decreasing from 0.61 to 0.49 hours daily. These trends suggest a general shift toward more home-centered activities and less time spent in community engagement over the past two decades.
About the Data
The ATUS is an annual survey conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that examines how people in the U.S. spend their time on a daily basis. It collects data on activities such as work, leisure, household tasks, and childcare, helping to provide insights into trends in work-life balance, gender roles, and overall time management. The survey is used to inform policymakers, researchers, and the public about how different groups allocate their time across various activities, contributing to a better understanding of social and economic patterns in the U.S.