{
  "title": "The Self-Care Time Gap",
  "url": "https://www.growyourmeadow.com/data/self-care-time-gap",
  "description": "Women get 49 fewer minutes of leisure a day than men, or 299 hours a year, while doing 15 minutes more total work. Federal time-use data, updated annually.",
  "publisher": "Wildcard Wellness",
  "publishedAt": "2026-09-10",
  "updatedAt": "2026-09-10",
  "nextUpdate": "June 2027, when the BLS publishes 2026 annual averages",
  "licence": {
    "name": "CC BY 4.0",
    "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
    "note": "Free to reuse with attribution to Meadow and a link to the report."
  },
  "stats": [
    {
      "id": "leisure-gap",
      "url": "https://www.growyourmeadow.com/data/self-care-time-gap#leisure-gap",
      "value": "49 minutes",
      "label": "less leisure a day for women than men",
      "claim": "American women spent 4.76 hours a day on leisure and sport in 2025, compared with 5.58 hours for men, a gap of 49 minutes a day.",
      "method": "Difference between the men’s and women’s all-persons averages for \"leisure and sports\" in ATUS Table 1 (5.58 − 4.76 = 0.82 hours), converted to minutes.",
      "sources": [
        "atus-2025-t1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "leisure-gap-year",
      "url": "https://www.growyourmeadow.com/data/self-care-time-gap#leisure-gap-year",
      "value": "299 hours",
      "label": "of leisure a year that women lose, or 12.5 full days",
      "claim": "At 2025 rates, the leisure gap between American women and men adds up to 299 hours a year, the equivalent of 12.5 twenty-four-hour days.",
      "method": "The daily gap of 0.82 hours multiplied by 365 days, then divided by 24 for the day equivalent. Assumes the daily average holds across the year, which is what an annual average means.",
      "sources": [
        "atus-2025-t1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "total-workload",
      "url": "https://www.growyourmeadow.com/data/self-care-time-gap#total-workload",
      "value": "15 minutes",
      "label": "more total work a day for women, paid and unpaid combined",
      "claim": "Counting paid work and unpaid work together, American women worked 15 minutes a day more than men in 2025 (6.76 hours against 6.51) and still ended the day with 49 minutes less leisure.",
      "method": "Paid work is the ATUS \"working and work-related activities\" category. Unpaid work sums four categories: household activities, purchasing goods and services, caring for and helping household members, and caring for and helping nonhousehold members. Men 3.82 + 2.69 = 6.51 hours; women 2.84 + 3.92 = 6.76 hours.",
      "sources": [
        "atus-2025-t1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "unpaid-work",
      "url": "https://www.growyourmeadow.com/data/self-care-time-gap#unpaid-work",
      "value": "1 hr 14 min",
      "label": "more unpaid housework and care a day for women",
      "claim": "American women did 1 hour 14 minutes more unpaid domestic and care work than men on an average day in 2025: 3.92 hours against 2.69.",
      "method": "Sum of household activities, purchasing goods and services, caring for household members, and caring for nonhousehold members, differenced between sexes.",
      "sources": [
        "atus-2025-t1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "exercise-gap",
      "url": "https://www.growyourmeadow.com/data/self-care-time-gap#exercise-gap",
      "value": "16 minutes",
      "label": "of exercise a day for women, against 26 minutes for men",
      "claim": "American women spent an average of 16 minutes a day on sport, exercise and recreation in 2025, against 26 minutes for men.",
      "method": "ATUS \"participating in sports, exercise, and recreation\", all-persons average: 0.26 hours for women, 0.43 for men.",
      "sources": [
        "atus-2025-t1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "exercise-none",
      "url": "https://www.growyourmeadow.com/data/self-care-time-gap#exercise-none",
      "value": "79%",
      "label": "of days on which women do no exercise at all",
      "claim": "On 79% of days, American women did no sport, exercise or recreation at all: only 21.1% took part on an average day in 2025, against 25.7% of men.",
      "method": "The complement of the ATUS participation rate for sport, exercise and recreation (100 − 21.1).",
      "sources": [
        "atus-2025-t1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "childcare-double",
      "url": "https://www.growyourmeadow.com/data/self-care-time-gap#childcare-double",
      "value": "2×",
      "label": "as much time caring for children for women as for men",
      "claim": "American women spent exactly twice as long caring for household children as men in 2025: 0.48 hours a day against 0.24.",
      "method": null,
      "sources": [
        "atus-2025-t1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "under-six",
      "url": "https://www.growyourmeadow.com/data/self-care-time-gap#under-six",
      "value": "1.1 hours",
      "label": "more childcare a day for women, in homes with a child under 6",
      "claim": "Among American adults living in households with children under age 6, women spent 2.8 hours a day providing primary childcare in 2025, compared with 1.7 hours for men.",
      "method": "Quoted directly from the BLS news release; this breakdown is not in Table 1.",
      "sources": [
        "atus-2025-release"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "housework-ratio",
      "url": "https://www.growyourmeadow.com/data/self-care-time-gap#housework-ratio",
      "value": "2.7×",
      "label": "as much housework for women as for men",
      "claim": "American women spent 2.7 times as long on housework as men in 2025: 0.81 hours a day against 0.30.",
      "method": "ATUS \"housework\" is the cleaning and laundry sub-category of household activities, not the whole of it.",
      "sources": [
        "atus-2025-t1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "gap-2019",
      "url": "https://www.growyourmeadow.com/data/self-care-time-gap#gap-2019",
      "value": "0.6 → 0.8",
      "label": "hours a day: the leisure gap in 2019, then in 2025",
      "claim": "The leisure gap between American men and women was 0.6 hours a day in 2019 and 0.8 hours in 2025.",
      "method": "BLS published the 2019 figures rounded to one decimal place (men 5.5 hours, women 4.9), so the comparison is stated to the same precision. ATUS estimates carry sampling error and this report does not claim the change is statistically significant.",
      "sources": [
        "atus-2025-t1",
        "ted-2020"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "tables": [
    {
      "id": "hours-by-sex",
      "title": "Average hours per day by sex, US civilian population aged 15 and over, 2025",
      "columns": [
        "Activity",
        "Men",
        "Women",
        "Difference (women − men)"
      ],
      "rows": [
        [
          "Leisure and sports",
          5.58,
          4.76,
          -0.82
        ],
        [
          "— Watching television",
          2.81,
          2.42,
          -0.39
        ],
        [
          "— Socializing and communicating",
          0.52,
          0.65,
          0.13
        ],
        [
          "— Sport, exercise and recreation",
          0.43,
          0.26,
          -0.17
        ],
        [
          "Working and work-related",
          3.82,
          2.84,
          -0.98
        ],
        [
          "Household activities",
          1.58,
          2.38,
          0.8
        ],
        [
          "— Housework",
          0.3,
          0.81,
          0.51
        ],
        [
          "— Food preparation and cleanup",
          0.51,
          0.91,
          0.4
        ],
        [
          "— Lawn and garden care",
          0.26,
          0.13,
          -0.13
        ],
        [
          "Purchasing goods and services",
          0.61,
          0.77,
          0.16
        ],
        [
          "Caring for household members",
          0.36,
          0.61,
          0.25
        ],
        [
          "— Caring for household children",
          0.24,
          0.48,
          0.24
        ],
        [
          "Caring for nonhousehold members",
          0.14,
          0.16,
          0.02
        ],
        [
          "Personal care",
          9.59,
          10,
          0.41
        ],
        [
          "— Sleeping",
          8.93,
          9.13,
          0.2
        ],
        [
          "Eating and drinking",
          1.24,
          1.18,
          -0.06
        ],
        [
          "Educational activities",
          0.41,
          0.47,
          0.06
        ],
        [
          "Organizational, civic and religious",
          0.25,
          0.31,
          0.06
        ],
        [
          "Telephone calls, mail and email",
          0.13,
          0.25,
          0.12
        ],
        [
          "Other activities",
          0.28,
          0.27,
          -0.01
        ]
      ],
      "note": "All-persons averages: spread across everyone, including those who did none of the activity that day. Each sex’s column sums to 24.00 hours across the top-level categories.",
      "sources": [
        "atus-2025-t1"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "atus-2025-t1",
      "title": "Table 1. Time spent in primary activities and percent of the civilian population engaging in each activity, averages per day by sex, 2025 annual averages",
      "publisher": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey",
      "url": "https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t01.htm",
      "covers": "2025 annual averages",
      "published": "2026-06-25",
      "retrieved": "2026-09-10"
    },
    {
      "id": "atus-2025-release",
      "title": "American Time Use Survey — 2025 Results (USDL news release)",
      "publisher": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics",
      "url": "https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.htm",
      "covers": "2025 annual averages",
      "published": "2026-06-25",
      "retrieved": "2026-09-10"
    },
    {
      "id": "ted-2020",
      "title": "Men spent 5.5 hours per day in leisure activities, women 4.9 hours, in 2019",
      "publisher": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Economics Daily",
      "url": "https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/men-spent-5-point-5-hours-per-day-in-leisure-activities-women-4-point-9-hours-in-2019.htm",
      "covers": "2019 annual averages",
      "published": "2020-07-02",
      "retrieved": "2026-09-10"
    },
    {
      "id": "ted-2026",
      "title": "Daily work and leisure habits of men and women",
      "publisher": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Economics Daily",
      "url": "https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2026/daily-work-and-leisure-habits-of-men-and-women.htm",
      "covers": "2025 annual averages",
      "published": "2026-06-30",
      "retrieved": "2026-09-10"
    }
  ],
  "methodology": [
    "Every figure comes from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), run by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. ATUS asks a nationally representative sample of Americans aged 15 and over to account for a single 24-hour day in detail, and publishes annual averages by sex.",
    "The figures used here are ATUS \"all-persons\" averages: time spread across everyone in the group, including people who did none of that activity on the day they were interviewed. ATUS also publishes a participants-only average, which is higher. The two are not interchangeable, and only the all-persons figures sum to 24 hours.",
    "Where a number is a difference, a sum or a per-year total, the arithmetic is stated on the stat itself. \"Unpaid work\" sums four ATUS categories: household activities, purchasing goods and services, caring for and helping household members, and caring for and helping nonhousehold members.",
    "Annual totals multiply the daily average by 365. Rounding to minutes happens once, at the end.",
    "Nothing here is modelled, weighted by us, or adjusted. It is federal survey data, transcribed and differenced."
  ],
  "limitations": [
    "ATUS \"personal care\" is not self-care. It is mostly sleeping, plus grooming and health-related self care, and women’s figure is higher than men’s (10.00 hours against 9.59) almost entirely because women sleep about 12 minutes more. Reading that category as \"women get more time for themselves\" misreads what it counts.",
    "These are averages across all adults, not a portrait of any individual, and not specific to mothers. The under-6 childcare figure is the only breakdown here that isolates parents.",
    "ATUS measures a single day per respondent. It is excellent at describing a population and cannot say anything about how any one person’s week goes.",
    "The survey records men and women only. It offers no data on nonbinary or transgender respondents, so this report cannot speak to them.",
    "ATUS is a sample and every figure carries sampling error, published separately by BLS in the survey’s technical note. Year-on-year comparisons here are described as they appear; no claim of statistical significance is made.",
    "Time spent is not the same as time enjoyed. ATUS counts minutes, not whether they felt restorative, uninterrupted, or like your own."
  ],
  "updates": [
    {
      "date": "2026-09-10",
      "note": "First published, on 2025 annual averages (released 25 June 2026), with a 2019 comparison."
    }
  ]
}