American Time Use Survey

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Working and Work-related Activities

Working and work-related activities includes time spent working, doing activities as part of one’s job, engaging in income-generating activities (not as part of one’s job), and job search activities. Work-related activities include activities that are not obviously work but are done as part of one’s job, such as having a business lunch or playing golf with clients. Other income-generating activities are those done under informal arrangement such as selling homemade crafts, babysitting, maintaining a rental property, or having a yard sale. For a more detailed description of this activity category, see the ATUS 2007 Technical Note.

Tables on this page:

Other sources of ATUS data

Working and work-related activities on weekdays and weekend days in 2007

Time spent working and in work-related activities ⁽¹⁾ and percent of the civilian population working and engaging in work-related activities, averages per day on weekdays and weekends, 2007 annual averages
Activity	Average hours per day, civilian population		Average percent engaged in the activity per day		Average hours per day for persons who engaged in the activity
Activity	Weekdays	Weekends and holidays ⁽²⁾	Weekdays	Weekends and holidays ⁽²⁾	Weekdays	Weekends and holidays ⁽²⁾
Total, working and work-related activities	4.81	1.47	57.4	25.1	8.38	5.84
Working	4.39	1.31	55.5	23.3	7.91	5.60
Work-related activities	.01	.00	.4	.2	⁽³⁾	⁽³⁾
Other income-generating activities	.02	.05	.8	1.5	⁽³⁾	3.06
Job search and interviewing	.03	.01	1.4	.5	2.05	⁽³⁾
Travel related to work	.36	.10	49.8	16.1	.72	.63
Footnotes: (1) All estimates refer to work or work-related activities done as a main (primary) activity. Other activities done simultaneously are not included. (2) Holidays are New Year's Day, Easter, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. Data were not collected about New Year's Day in 2007. (3) Data not shown where base is less than 1.2 million. NOTE: Data refer to persons 15 years and over, including persons who are employed (on days they did and did not work), as well as persons who are not employed.

These and other detailed activity estimates are also available in:

Table A-2: Time spent in detailed primary activities, and percent of the civilian population engaging in each detailed primary activity category, averages per day on weekdays and weekends, 2007 annual averages (PDF)

For a further description of ATUS data and methodology, see the ATUS 2007 Technical Note.

Working and work-related activities done by men and women in 2007

Time spent working and in work-related activities ⁽¹⁾ and percent of the civilian population working or engaging in work-related activities, averages per day by sex, 2007 annual averages
Activity	Average hours per day, civilian population			Average percent engaged in the activity per day			Average hours per day for persons who engaged in the activity
Activity	Total	Men	Women	Total	Men	Women	Total	Men	Women
Total, working and work-related activities	3.81	4.52	3.14	47.8	54.2	41.7	7.98	8.34	7.53
Working	3.47	4.09	2.89	45.9	51.9	40.2	7.56	7.87	7.18
Work-related activities	.01	.01	.00	.4	.5	.2	⁽²⁾	⁽²⁾	⁽²⁾
Other income-generating activities	.03	.03	.02	1.0	1.1	.9	2.73	⁽²⁾	2.64
Job search and interviewing	.02	.03	.02	1.1	1.3	.9	2.06	⁽²⁾	⁽²⁾
Travel related to work	.28	.36	.21	39.7	45.4	34.3	.71	.79	.61
Footnotes: (1) All estimates refer to work or work-related activities done as a main (primary) activity. Other activities done simultaneously are not included. (2) Data not shown where base is less than 1.2 million. NOTE: Data refer to persons 15 years and over, including persons who are employed (on days they did and did not work), as well as persons who are not employed.

These and other detailed activity estimates are also available in:

Table A-1. Time spent in detailed primary activities and percent of the civilian population engaging in each detailed primary activity category, averages per day by sex, 2007 annual averages (PDF)

For a further description of ATUS data and methodology, see the ATUS 2007 Technical Note.

Other sources of ATUS data

ATUS news releases:

NEW Time Use Survey, 2007 (HTML) (PDF)
Time Use Survey, 2006 (HTML) (PDF)
Time Use Survey, 2005 (TXT) (PDF)
Time Use Survey, 2004 (TXT) (PDF)
Time Use Survey, 2003 (TXT) (PDF) (Corrections)

NEW Married Parents' Use of Time, 2003-06 (HTML) (PDF)

ATUS tables:

Table A-1. Time spent in detailed primary activities, and percent of the civilian population engaging in each detailed primary activity category, averages per day by sex (PDFs) (2007) (2006)
Table A-2. Time spent in detailed primary activities, and percent of the civilian population engaging in each detailed primary activity category, averages per day on weekdays and weekends (PDFs) (2007) (2006)
Table A-3. Percent of the population engaging in selected activities by time of day (PDF) (2003-07)

Unpublished tables of time-use estimates by age, ethnicity, employment status, educational attainment, marital status, presence and age of household children, and other categories are available upon request by e-mailing the ATUS staff.

American Time Use Survey