Researcher finds Americans sleeping, watching TV more; helping less

Drawing upon new Census Bureau time-diary data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in its American Time Use Survey (ATUS), Maryland Population Research Center Faculty Associate and Emeritus Professor John Robinson has noted some surprising trends in how Americans have been using their time during the initial Millennial decade from 2003 to 2013.

“While perhaps the dominant theme is how little has changed during this decade of dazzling new technology and the most difficult economic recession in 70 years, the main ATUS activities showing gains were in sleep and watching TV,” Professor Robinson said.

Offsetting these increases were declines in helping others and in everyday travel.

The latest ATUS figures document declines in women’s housework and gains in parental time with children, along with overall gains in free time. While these trends were expected to continue, it was at a much slower pace.

Since 2003, these detailed national time accounts have been collected annually through ATUS, which involves random telephone interviews with a national sample of nearly 150,000 Americans about all their daily activities during the previous 24 hours. The ATUS survey thus provides “a continuous and detailed monitor of Americans’ everyday quality of life [QOL] in real time,” Robinson noted.

Despite the historic 2007 recession, time spent on paid work seemed hardly affected. As in previous decades, there was also about an hour’s decline in domestic work and shopping, mainly among women. Unlike previous time studies, that decline included a 30% decline in “informal volunteering,” that is, help to neighbors and members of other households, a key indicator of the country’s social safety net. At the same time, there was little decline in “formal volunteering” done through organizations or in help provided to one’s own children and other family members.

There was also a decline in personal travel for shopping or for free time activities, almost entirely by automobile.

Despite the significant gain in access to and time with new information technologies across the decade, ATUS respondents described a greater gain in their time spent focused on the old technology of television. That may reflect improvements in the quality of program content, especially that now provided by paid channels, like HBO or Netflix. Whatever the impetus, TV viewing now commands about half of Americans’ free time – up from about a third of that free time in the first U.S. time survey in 1965.       

Despite their decline in housework, women in 2013 still reported doing 2/3 of such domestic labor, much as was true a decade earlier. However, that was far lower than the 85% ratio of such housework found in 1965. Likewise, women in 2013 did almost 40% of all paid work, much the same as in 2003.

Combining both paid and unpaid work hours, then, men did 44.5 hours of all work (53%) in society, women 39.7 hours—again much as in 2003. However, women aged 18-64 had less free time 34.5 weekly hours vs. men’s 37.6 hours, although most of that difference was made up by women’s 3.5 greater hours sleeping and grooming.

Published on Thu, Jan 22, 2015 - 1:45PM