June 26, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Average hours that men and women worked in 2007

On the days that they worked, employed men worked about three-quarters of an hour more than employed women.

Time spent working on days worked, by full- and part-time status and sex, 2007
[Chart data—TXT]

This difference partly reflects women's greater likelihood of working part time. However, even among full-time workers (those usually working 35 hours or more per week), men worked slightly longer than women—8.2 versus 7.8 hours.

Among part-time workers, men averaged 5.2 hours on days they worked and women averaged 5.4 hours.

The data in this report are from the American Time Use Survey. To learn more, see "American Time Use Survey—2007 Results," (HTML) (PDF) news release USDL 08-0859.