American Time Use Survey

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Charts by Topic: Work and employment

Findings from the 2006 survey:

Employed persons worked 7.6 hours on average on the days that they worked. They worked longer on weekdays than on weekend days—8.0 versus 5.4 hours.
Many more people worked on weekdays than on weekend days: 84 percent of employed persons worked on an average weekday compared with 35 percent on an average weekend day.
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. However, even among full-time workers (those usually working 35 hours or more per week), men worked somewhat longer than women—8.4 versus 7.7 hours.
On the days they worked, 21 percent of employed persons did some or all of their work at home and 86 percent did some or all of their work at their workplace. Hours worked at home averaged 2.6 hours per day while hours worked at a workplace averaged 7.9 hours per day. Men and women were equally likely to do some of all of their work at home.
Employed women, ages 25 to 54, who lived with a child under age 6 spent about an hour less per day on average working than employed women living in households without children. On the other hand, employed men living with a child under age 6 worked about the same amount of time as those living in households without children.

Multiple jobholders were about twice as likely to work on a weekend day or holiday as single jobholders. (Data are from the 2006 survey).

Self-employed workers are more than three times as likely to work at home as wage and salary workers; multiple jobholders are more than twice as likely to work at home as single jobholders. (Data are from the 2006 survey).

Among educational groups, those with a bachelor’s degree or higher were most likely to work at home. On the days they worked, 34 percent of individuals with a bachelor's degree or higher worked from home compared to 20 percent of those with some college and 13 percent of those with a high school diploma. (These data are four-year averages for 2003 to 2006).

On days that they worked, more than three-quarters of employed individuals age 15 and over worked between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Less than 8.5 percent of employed individuals worked between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. (These data are four-year averages for 2003 to 2006).