AMERICAN TIME USE SURVEY —2012 RESULTS
In 2012, on days they worked, 23 percent of employed persons did some or all of their work at home,
the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Among workers age 25 and over, those with a
bachelor’s degree or higher were more likely to work at home than were persons with less education—
38 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher performed some work at home on days worked
compared with 5 percent of those with less than a high school diploma.
These and other results from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) were released today. These data
include the average amount of time per day in 2012 that individuals worked, did household activities,
and engaged in leisure and sports activities.
- Employed persons worked an average of 7.7 hours on the days they worked. More hours were worked, on average, on weekdays than on weekend days—8.0 hours compared with 5.7 hours.
- On the days they worked, employed men worked 55 minutes more than employed women. This difference partly reflects women’s greater likelihood of working part time. However, even among full-time workers (those usually working 35 hours or more per week), men worked longer than women—8.5 hours compared with 7.9 hours.
- Many more people worked on weekdays than on weekend days—83 percent of employed persons worked on an average weekday, compared with 34 percent on an average weekend day.
- On the days they worked, 85 percent of employed persons did some or all of their work at their workplace and 23 percent did some or all of their work at home. They spent more time working at the workplace than at home—7.9 hours compared with 3.0 hours.
- Multiple jobholders were more likely to work on an average day than were single jobholders—83 percent compared with 67 percent.
- Self-employed workers were nearly three times more likely than wage and salary workers to have done some work at home on days worked—56 percent compared with 20 percent. Self-employed workers also were more likely to work on weekend days than were wage and salary workers—42 percent compared with 31 percent.
- On the days they worked, 38 percent of employed people age 25 and over with a bachelor’s degree or higher did some work at home, compared with only 5 percent of those with less than a high school diploma.
