How Americans Are Using Their Time

Not totally related to small and home business, but I thought it may be interesting to share the results of the recently released the American Time Use Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is the first survey conducted by the Government on how Americans are using a very critical resource — time. The survey collected data on the activities people do during the day and how much time theyspend doing them.

Below are some of the interesting findings:

• On an “average day” in 2003, persons in the U.S. age 15 and over sleptabout 8.6 hours, spent 5.1 hours doing leisure and sports activities,worked for 3.7 hours, and spent 1.8 hours doing household activities. Theremaining 4.8 hours were spent in a variety of other activities, includingeating and drinking, attending school, and shopping.
• On days that they worked, about 1 in 5 employed persons did some or all of their work at home.
• On the days they worked, employed men worked about an hour more than employed women. This difference partly reflects women’s greater likelihood of working part time.
• Self-employed persons were far more likely than wage and salary workers to have done some work at home–51 versus 16 percent.