How Working Parents Spend Their Time

In the ever-present struggle to achieve work-life balance, work all too often has the upper hand, due in part to the lack of family friendly workplace policies. Consider this: roughly 50.2 million working Americans are raising a child and 6.8 million provide both child care and elder care, but 87 percent of all private sector workers lack access to paid family leave and 41 million private sector workers do not have access to even one day of paid sick leave.

How do working parents juggle it all? Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics sheds some light on this through a survey that tracks how Americans spend their time. In the table below we highlight how families with two parents working full time split up their work and leisure time.

Time Spent by Married Parents Who Both Work Full Time (average for the combined years 2011-2015)
Activity	Weekly average		Difference*
	Mothers	Fathers
Sleeping	57 hours, 32 minutes	56 hours, 13 minutes	+1 hour, 20 minutes
Housework	5 hours, 11 minutes	1 hour, 53 minutes	+3 hours, 17 minutes
Food preparation and cleanup	5 hours, 36 minutes	2 hours, 28 minutes	+2 hours, 28 minutes
Lawn and garden care	25 minutes	1 hour, 41 minutes	-1 hour, 11 minutes
Grocery shopping	55 minutes	29 minutes	+25 minutes
Caring for and helping household children	9 hours, 27 minutes	6 hours, 14 minutes	+3 hours, 13 minutes
Physical care	3 hours, 55 minutes	1 hour, 58 minutes	+1 hour, 58 minutes
Education-related activities	46 minutes	38 minutes	+13 minutes
Reading to/with children	17 minutes	13 minutes	+4 minutes
Playing/doing hobbies with children	1 hour, 58 minutes	1 hour, 58 minutes	none
Working	36 hours, 32 minutes	42 hours, 59 minutes	-6 hours, 26 minutes
Socializing and communicating	4 hours, 25 minutes	4 hours, 8 minutes	+17 minutes
Watching television	10 hours, 22 minutes	14 hours, 17 minutes	-3 hours, 55 minutes
Participating in sports, exercise, and recreation	1 hour, 20 minutes	1 hour, 49 minutes	-29 minutes
Travel related to caring for and helping household children	1 hour, 41 minutes	1 hour, 3 minutes	+38 minutes

There are noticeable differences between how moms and dads spend their time at home. Many factors contribute to these differences; for example, some researchers have noted that policies at work can lead to both men and women falling into “traditional” roles at home.

For example, if a child is sick and needs to stay home from school but neither parent has access to paid sick leave, who should take an unpaid day off from work? Given that the typical woman working full-time year-round earns just 80 percent of what the typical man makes in a year, families may have a financial reason for mom to stay home with a sick child rather than dad.

The good news is that states, localities and companies are all beginning to take action to implement paid leave policies. Ultimately, flexible workplace policies, benefits like paid leave, and equal pay for equal work will allow moms and dads to more easily meet the demands of life and the opportunity to do so in a more equitable manner.

Dr. Heidi Shierholz is the department’s chief economist.

 

*Note: Differences are calculated by subtracting fathers’ average hours from mothers’ average hours. Data are limited to households with married couples who have children under 18, in which both spouses work full time. Data are not available for same-sex couples. Due to data limitations estimates for 2011-2015 are not available for single parents. Source: American Time Use Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Graphic text: Working parents’ use of time. Moms vs. dads in an average week, based on households with married couples who have children under 18 and in which both spouses work full time, 2011-2015. Dads spend 6 hours, 26 minutes more working for pay; 4 hours, 33 minutes more on sports and leisure; and 1 hour, 11 minutes more on lawn and garden care. Moms spend 3 hours, 17 minutes more on housework; 3 hours, 13 minutes more caring for children (more if those children are under 6); and 2 hours, 48 minutes more on food prep and cleanup.