A lonely year
Average time spent per day during waking hours, May through December in 2020 vs. 2019
No time
2 hours
4 hours
6 hours
8 hours
Alone
+57 min.
With household members only
+31 min.
With people outside household
–1 hour and 33 min.
2019
2020
Note: Excludes time spent on personal grooming and other activities where data on who is there is not collected.
Last year was the year of sourdough baking and jigsaw puzzles — and of trying to work with a toddler screaming in the same room. It was the year of commuting from the bedroom to the living room for those able to work from home, and of harrowing, masked bus rides for many of those who had to go to work in person. It was a year of profound loneliness for those trapped in nursing homes, and of too much togetherness for those quarantining in too-small apartments.
It was a year, in other words, when the pandemic changed life for everyone, but in different ways.
The American Time Use Survey every year asks thousands of people to track every minute of a single day. Most years, the data reflects the ways in which changes in technology, society and the economy subtly shift how we spend our days. For 2020, it reflected the sudden rupture of daily life.
The Labor Department, which oversees the survey, paused data collection in mid-March last year because of the coronavirus outbreak, and didn’t resume it until mid-May. That means the year’s data is missing the most intense period of lockdowns and business closings last year. But it offers a glimpse of how we adapted to a different way of living as the pandemic dragged on, when we were left to figure out how to shop, work, entertain ourselves and connect with others in brand new and perhaps enduring ways. And it shows how those adaptations and disruptions varied across groups.
Beyond work and school
People last year spent far less waking time — an hour and a half less, on average — with people outside their own household. For people who didn’t live with anyone else, in particular, that meant a lot of time by themselves — more than 20 hours a day either asleep or alone, on average.
Seniors spent the most time alone. But it was young people, especially teenagers, who saw the biggest shift in their social lives. Teenagers 15 to 19 spent six hours a day alone in 2020, up from four and a half in 2019.
With less time out of the house, Americans stared at screens a lot, for Zoom happy hours, Netflix binges or idle social media scrolling.
While others let their hair grow long and worried less about their wardrobes, young people were the only group to spend more time on personal grooming in 2020 — and the only group to spend less time working out.
Sleeping
8
8.5
9
9.5
10 hours per day
+
5 min.
+
13 min.
+
15 min.
+
4 min.
2019
2020
Doing housework
15
30
45 min. per day
+
3 min.
+
5 min.
+
6 min.
No change
2019
2020
Grooming
30
35
40
45 min. per day
+
0.4 min.
–
4 min.
–
7 min.
–
4 min.
2019
2020
Exercising
15
30
45 min. per day
–
5 min.
+
5 min.
+
4 min.
+
4 min.
2019
2020
Texting, phone calls and video chats
5
10
15 min. per day
+
8 min.
+
2 min.
+
2 min.
+
3 min.
2019
2020
Cooking
15
30
45
60 min. per day
–
6 min.
+
2 min.
+
6 min.
+
4 min.
2019
2020
Watching TV, movies or videos
2
4
6 hours per day
+
22 min.
+
11 min.
+
25 min.
+
16 min.
2019
2020
Using computers or smartphones
15
30
45 min. per day
+
10 min.
+
0.5 min.
+
3 min.
+
2 min.
2019
2020
Playing games
30
60
90 min. per day
+
24 min.
+
6 min.
+
3 min.
+
3 min.
2019
2020
Notes: Annual averages include all people, not just those who participated at all in each activity. The computers and smartphones category excludes school and work use, or time spent on devices for gaming, watching videos or other uses covered in other categories. Examples of included uses are social media and internet activity.
Parents had a lot to juggle
It’s no secret that the pandemic was particularly disruptive to the lives of people with children. But the time-use data shows just how much child care dominated the lives of parents last year, and how the burden fell unevenly.
With schools closed in much of the country, parents jumped in to help with homework or home-schooling, while spending less time running errands like pickup and drop-off. Overall, parents spent a few minutes more a day on such direct child care duties, with the biggest burden falling on those with kids who would ordinarily have been in elementary school.
But the big change was in the amount of time parents spent watching their children while juggling other tasks, what Labor Department statisticians call “secondary child care.” Parents of elementary-school-age children spent six hours a day on secondary child care in 2020, an hour and 20 minutes more than in 2019. Women bore the brunt of the burden: They spent seven hours a day on secondary child care (versus less than five hours for men), and eight hours on child care overall.
School-age kids required more time
Average time spent per day caring for children, among adults with children ages 6-12 in their household, May through December in 2020 vs. 2019
No time
2 hours
4 hours
6 hours
8 hours
10 hours
Women
+2 hours and 4 min.
Men
+1 hour and 21 min.
2019
2020
Parents spent more time doing just about everything while keeping an eye on the kids in 2020 — more time cooking, more time cleaning and, in particular, more time working. Women spent 48 more minutes a day working while responsible for children in 2020, a figure that understates the true increase for many women because the average includes women who weren’t working at all.
While working
15
30
45
60
75 min. per day
Women
+
48 min.
Men
+
16 min.
2019
2020
While cooking
+
13 min.
+
3 min.
2019
2020
While doing housework
+
6 min.
+
4 min.
2019
2020
Child care increased for mothers across the board last year. But single moms were hit especially hard. Unmarried women with elementary-school-age children at home spent nearly three extra hours a day on child care; the time unmarried men spent on child care hardly changed.
The picture looked very different in married households, where men and women saw roughly equal increases in child care (although women still shouldered a greater burden in total).
Married
2
4
6
8
10 hours per day
Women
+
1 hour and 49 min.
Men
+
1 hour and 41 min.
2019
2020
Never married
+
2 hours and 45 min.
+
15 min.
2019
2020
Widowed, divorced or separated
+
2 hours and 49 min.
–
3 min.
2019
2020
Time spent working
Americans worked less last year on average, but that was because mass layoffs in the spring meant fewer people were working at all. Among those who kept their jobs, there was little change in the amount of time spent working in a given day — about seven and a half hours in 2020, the same as in 2019.
Of course, the nature of work changed drastically. In 2019, one in seven people worked primarily from home on a given day. In 2020, that figure rose to one in three. (The share was almost certainly even higher in the spring, when data wasn’t collected.) Overall, the average time spent at the office or job site fell more than an hour and a half among employed workers, while the amount of time spent working from home rose about the same amount.
On average, Americans still spent more time at workplaces than working at home
Average time spent per day working, among those who worked at all, May through December in 2020 vs. 2019
No time
2 hours
4 hours
6 hours
8 hours
At home
+1 hour and 38 min.
At workplace
–1 hour and 39 min.
2019
2020
The changes weren’t evenly distributed. Hispanic workers were likelier to lose their jobs than members of other racial or ethnic groups, while Black workers were more likely to be in jobs that required them to keep going to work in person. White and Asian workers were far more likely than other groups to be able to work from home.
White workers
2
4
6
8 hours per day
At home
+
1 hour and 36 min.
At workplace
–
1 hour and 32 min.
2019
2020
Black workers
+
1 hour and 1 min.
–
34 min.
2019
2020
Hispanic workers
2
4
6
8 hours per day
+
1 hour and 14 min.
–
1 hour and 36 min.
2019
2020
Asian workers
+
4 hours and 21 min.
–
3 hours and 28 min.
2019
2020
Note: Racial categories exclude people identifying as Hispanic or Latino. Hispanics can be of any race.
The educational divide is just as stark. Americans with higher levels of education were both more likely to keep their jobs and more likely to be able to work from home than those with less formal education. People with graduate or professional degrees actually spent more time, on average, working from home last year than working from the office. Those with a high school diploma or less, meanwhile, saw little increase in their time spent working from home, reflecting the large share of them who were considered “essential workers” and had to show up for work in person in the midst of a pandemic.
High school or less
2
4
6
8 hours per day
At home
+
24 min.
At workplace
–
16 min.
2019
2020
Some college
+
1 hour and 27 min.
–
1 hour and 17 min.
2019
2020
Bachelor’s degree
2
4
6
8 hours per day
+
2 hours and 24 min.
–
2 hours and 16 min.
2019
2020
Graduate degree
+
2 hours and 57 min.
–
2 hours and 43 min.
2019
2020
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Among the biggest increases:
| 2019 | 2020 | |
|---|---|---|
| Telephone calls | 5 min. | 8 min. |
| Lawn and garden care | 12 min. | 16 min. |
| Relaxing and leisure | 3.9 hr. | 4.6 hr. |
| Sports, exercise and recreation | 19 min. | 22 min. |
| Housework | 32 min. | 36 min. |
| Food preparation and cleanup | 37 min. | 40 min. |
| Animal and pet care | 7 min. | 8 min. |
| Sleeping | 8.8 hr. | 9 hr. |
Among the biggest decreases:
| 2019 | 2020 | |
|---|---|---|
| Household management | 11 min. | 11 min. |
| Caring for children in household (as primary focus) | 20 min. | 19 min. |
| Working | 3.2 hr. | 3 hr. |
| Grooming | 41 min. | 36 min. |
| Travel related to consumer purchases | 14 min. | 12 min. |
| Socializing and communicating | 36 min. | 30 min. |
| Shopping | 21 min. | 17 min. |
| Travel related to work | 16 min. | 11 min. |
The time Americans spent doing different activities in 2019 vs. 2020
Average hours per day
Relaxing and leisure
Working
Eating and drinking
Grooming
Food preparation and cleanup
Socializing and communicating
Housework
Shopping
Caring for children in household (as primary focus)
Sports, exercise and recreation
Travel related to work
Travel related to consumer purchases
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Lawn and garden care
Homework and research
Household management
Attending class
Animal and pet care
Telephone calls
0 hours
1
2
3
4
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The Pandemic Changed How We Spent Our Time - The New York Times
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