How a time-use survey builds an average day

In the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2024 American Time Use Survey, time spent participating in sports, exercise and recreation averaged about 19 minutes a day across the population measured. Among people who did those activities on the day they described, the average was about 88 minutes. A third number connects those results. About 21.5% participated on an average day.

One interview covers one diary day

In this survey, a selected person aged 15 or older reports what they did the previous day. The interviewer works through the day from 4 a.m. to 4 a.m. and records the sequence of activities and their duration. The estimates combine diaries across different days of the week and people in the survey population.

Where someone did several things together, the main diary normally records the primary activity. The survey collects some simultaneous activities separately, including care of children under 13 while doing something else. When comparing totals for work, rest or caring, it helps to check which activities the table records and whether simultaneous activities have a separate column.

How the three numbers fit together

Table 1 of the 2024 release gives 0.31 hours a day for the full population, 21.5% taking part and 1.46 hours for those who took part. Multiply the participation share, 0.215, by 1.46 hours and the result is about 0.314 hours, close to the published 0.31 after rounding. Multiplying hours by 60 puts the estimates into minutes.

A smaller fictional example shows the same arithmetic. Of four diary days, one contains 60 minutes of a given activity. Participation is one in four and the participant average is 60 minutes. The population average is 15 minutes because all four diaries are in its denominator.

Use the number that answers your question

To ask how common an activity is on a particular kind of day, start with the participation share. To ask how long people spent once they did it, use the participant average. To estimate time across a whole group, use the population average.

The same logic works in reverse. An activity can take less time across the population because fewer people did it, because participants spent less time doing it, or because both changed. Read both columns before choosing an explanation.

These are estimates from sampled days, and comparisons are most useful when the population, the activity and the day type match. A weekday table for employed people answers a different question from an all-days table for everyone aged 15 or older. Read the table heading with the number.