Posted on 07/01/2013 7:34:03 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
After work and sleep, most Americans have eight hours left of their day to spend as they please. How much time Americans spend watching TV, getting exercise, cleaning and playing sports depends on whether they are men or women, 15 or 64, married or single. While the economy and technology have changed dramatically in the past decade, how Americans spend their time on average has remained largely unchanged.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released its 2012 American Time Use Survey. The survey measures the average amount of time Americans spend on different activities in a given day. Personal care, which is mostly taken up by sleep, accounts for the most amount of time each day, followed by leisure activities, including watching TV and playing sports, and work.
Men allocate their time differently than women. On an average day, men spent one hour and 17 minutes on household activities, which include housework, food preparation and lawn care. Meanwhile, women spent two hours and 10 minutes on those activities. Men also spent 36 minutes on a given day purchasing goods or services, while women spent about 50 minutes. Women spent just over 14 minutes a day on recreation, sports and exercise, compared to 24.6 minutes for men. In most of these cases, the difference was primarily because one sex participated more in a given activity.
Time was allocated differently based on age as well. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the time devoted to educational activities was by Americans between the ages of 15 and 24. People over the age of 75 spent more than an hour and a half eating and drinking, while people between the ages of 15 and 24 spent just an hour on that activity. While Americans over the age of 75 spent two hours and 25 minutes on household activities, people between 15 and 19 spent just 40 minutes on them.
Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual American Time Use Survey, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the ways the average person 15 and older spends an average day each week. Weekends are factored into the calculation as well. We also reviewed numbers from the survey by gender, age and those who reported engaging in the activity in a given day.
This is how Americans spend their time when not at work.
8. Organizational, Civic and Religious Activities
> Average time spent: 0.32 hours
> Pct. Americans engage on a given day: 13.8%
Americans spent an average of 19.2 minutes participating in organizational, civic and religious activities on a given day. However, only 13.8% of people engaged in these activities on an average day, and those people spent an average of two hours and 20 minutes participating. This is despite the fact that 79% of Americans are affiliated with a religious group of some sort, according to Pew Research Centers. In addition, the BLS noted that 26.5% of people engaged in volunteering activities between September 2011 and September 2012.
7. Educational Activities
> Average time spent: 0.5 hours
> Pct. Americans engage on a given day: 8.5%
Younger people accounted for the vast majority of time devoted to educational activities. The average person between 15 and 24 spent far more time than anyone else on these activities, with the majority of that time spent during the weekday. Those taking part on any given day spent an average of five hours and 52 minutes doing so. People who actually attended class spent five hours and 10 minutes there, while people who reported doing research and homework spent on average two hours and 45 minutes on their tasks.
6. Caring For and Helping Household Members
> Average time spent: 0.51 hours
> Pct. Americans engage on a given day: 24.5%
More than 80% of the time Americans spent helping members of the household involved taking care of children. Those who cared for children — more than 20% of the adult population — spent an average of almost two hours performing that task. Nearly 25% of women cared for children during an average day, compared to just 15.6% of men. In addition, the women who engaged in this activity spent more time — two hours and eight minutes — on it than men, who spent one hour and 43 minutes caring for children.
5. Purchasing Goods and Services
> Average time spent: 0.72 hours
> Pct. Americans engage on a given day: 41.4%
The average American spent more than 43 minutes buying goods and services, with women spending considerably more time than men on this activity. The time spent purchasing goods and services actually has fallen from 48.6 minutes back in 2003. This could decrease further with the rise in e-commerce, which will reduce visits to brick-and-mortar stores. E-commerce sales alone are expected to rise 13% in 2013 to $262 billion. By 2017, e-commerce is expected to generate $370 billion in sales, or 10% of all retail purchases, up from 8% currently.
4. Eating and Drinking
> Average time spent: 1.25 hours
> Pct. Americans engage on a given day: 96%
Americans spent an hour and 15 minutes a day eating and drinking. As people get older, they spend more time on this activity. For instance, the average person over the age of 75 spent 1.5 hours eating and drinking in 2012, while Americans between 15 and 19 took just an hour. Men spent one hour and 18 minutes eating, compared to one hour and 12 minutes for women.
3. Household Activities
> Average time spent: 1.74 hours
> Pct. Americans engage on a given day: 73.7%
Men spent approximately one hour and 17 minutes performing household activities, while women spent more than two hours and 10 minutes. The most common household activity was housework, which accounted for 36 minutes of an average person’s day. But in both housework and household activities alone, men who participated actually spent more time than women performing these tasks. Also, 11.7% of men participated in lawn and gardening activities on an average day, compared to just 8% of women. Of those who worked on the lawn or garden, men spent 38% more time on the task than women.
2. Leisure and Sports
> Average time spent: 5.37 hours
> Pct. Americans engage on a given day: 96.2%
Americans spent an average of two hours and 50 minutes a day watching television, making it the most common leisure activity. The more than 80% of people who watched TV on any given day watched more than 3.5 hours a day. Americans on an average day also spent 45 minutes socializing and communicating, with more than 37% of people spending two hours. Americans also spent more than 19 minutes participating in sports, exercise and recreation, with more than 19% participating spending an hour and 40 minutes on these activities.
1. Personal Care Activities
> Average time spent: 9.49 hours
> Pct. Americans engage on a given day: 100%
Americans spent 9.5 hours partaking in personal care activities — far more time than on anything else during the day. The vast majority of that time — eight hours and 44 minutes — was spent on sleeping. Women slept an average of eight hours and 52 minutes, compared to eight hours and 36 minutes for men. There were some people who got far less sleep, however. For instance, 20% of Americans reported getting less than six hours of sleep a night.
Neglecting unpaid overtime, commuting, necessity shopping, filling out tax forms, etc.
8 hr, my 0bama.
And people wonder how I manage to get so much stuff done. No TV. That is the answer.
/johnny
For now. But Obama has a plan to deal with this problem ...
When I dumped TV in 1997, one of the first things I did was become a bass player. It’s still a blast!
That was my thought also! Does this nit think that most Americans work at home? Or maybe we just sleep four hours a night?
Bump for later. CSI is on! *SNORT*
The Bureau of Welfare Statistics (BWS) has released its 2012 American Time Use Survey. The survey measures the average amount of time Americans on welfare spend on different activities in a given day. Just hangin’, which is mostly taken up by sleep, accounts for the vast amount of time each day, followed by leisure activities, including watching TV, walking around downtown, applying for government benefits, drinking, getting tattoos, going shopping around the first of the month, and the occasional cash-payment job.
An hour a day on household activities?
I spend less than 5 minutes a day keeping my bathroom clean, neck now that I think of it, sometimes I skip a day.
I’ll bet I don’t spend 20 minutes a week and I’ll tackle the stove once every two weeks and just wife it down as used.
I don’t spend two hours a month on domestic duties.
The rest my house cleaner, gardners and handymen take care of.
You wife down your stove? Hannibal? Izatyu?
I dontknowmyphonetyoesitsown stuff.
Feel like throwing it against a brick wall @ 96 mph. Right over home plate, in a pickup game in Harlem.
Please define the term...just wife it down... :-)
If I need to be at work by 7:00 I need to get up at 5:30. I have to get prepare myself for work and then get to work.
At noon I have a 1/2 hour and at 3:30 I leave and drive home arriving at 4:15 pm allowing for traffic. I then have the hours from 4:15 to 9:30 to do as I please. By my count that 5.25 hours to "do as I please" 5.75 hours if you count my half hour lunch.
LOL
Don’t have a wife but, occasionally my phone delivers a good one liner for future use.
No job, so nothing that costs anything here.
Most of my after work time is spent fuming that my [considerable] tax money from the time I do spend working goes to support absolute nonsense like this Bureau of Labor Statistics study.
Note, BTW, the word “Statist” embedded in the word “Statistics.”
Eat, drink and do Mary ....
Or .....just make something better before I rest at the end of each day.....
Stay safe !
I tried to learn how to play a bass once, but my wife threatened to kick me out of the house. After about three days, the thing really got to stinking, so much so that I couldn’t hardly stand to press it to my lips.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.