The Bureau of Labor Statistics has recently released the results of their 2024 American Time Use Survey, which measured how much time American adults spend on work, households chores and responsibilities, and leisurely activities. Aligned with findings from the 2023 survey, this year’s report found women spend more time on housework and childcare responsibilities and less time engaging in leisurely activities than men.
Among employed adults in the United States, men worked 33 minutes more per day, on average, than women. This is partly due to women’s increased likelihood of working part-time. However, among full-time workers, men still worked slightly more than women per day, averaging 8.2 hours and 7.9 hours, respectively. Women were more likely than men to report spending some time working from home, at 36 percent and 29 percent, respectively. Notably, the share of men working from home decreased by 5 percentage points from 2023, while women’s share remained unchanged.
On an average day, 80 percent of American adults spent some time on household activities, such as housework, cooking, lawn care, and household management. However, women were significantly more likely than men to do so, at 87 percent and 74 percent, respectively. Furthermore, among adults who did household activities on the average day, women spent an average of 2.7 hours and men spent an average of 2.3 hours on these activities.
Although nearly all (94 percent) adults in the United States engaged in some form of leisurely or sport activity on the average day, men spent more time on these activities than women, averaging 5.5 hours and 4.7 hours per day, respectively.
The largest gender disparities in how American adults spent their time center on childcare activities. Among adults who live in households with children under age 6, women spent an average of one hour more per day on primary childcare responsibilities than their male counterparts (3.0 hours versus 2.0 hours).