The Work Buzz's Latest News: A day in the life of the average American

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A day in the life of the average American Posted: 24 Jun 2011 12:25 PM PDT There's nothing like waking up on a Saturday morning and realizing that it's the weekend, knowing that you have the entire day ahead of you to do whatever it is you feel like doing. Unless, of course, you wake up on Saturday morning and realize that you have to work all day. While working on the weekend may sound like a bad dream to many of us, it's actually a routine reality for a fairly large part of the U.S. population. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "American Time Use Survey," more than one -third (35 percent) of the U.S. population is working on any given weekend (this accounts for jobholders who usually work on weekends, as well as those whose work occasionally carries over onto weekends). Making the weekend workday slightly more bearable is the fact that, while the average workday during the week is about 7.9 hours,  jobholders put in an average of just 5.5 hours per day on weekends. So what else did the survey tell us about a day in the life of the average American? Below are some of the more interesting findings about how we spend our time. Work Among full-time workers, men worked about .4 hours more each day than women — 8.2 hours compared to 7.8 hours. On the average workday, 24 percent of jobholders did at least some work from home. Eighty-three percent did some or all of their work at their workplace. Self-employed workers were more likely to work from home than wage or salaried workers — 64 percent compared to 19 percent.   Home and leisure On an average day, women were not only more likely than men to do household activities like cleaning, cooking and lawn care — 84 percent compared to 67 percent; they  also spent more time each day on these activities — 2.6 hours for women, compared to 2.1 hours for men. Overall, Americans spent the most leisure time watching TV (2.7 hours), followed by socializing — visiting with friends and attending social events — (about 45 mins). Men were more likely to participate in exercise, sports and recreation than women — 22 percent compared with 16 percent. In households with children under the age of 6, adults spent an average of two hours each day providing primary child care (where child care was  the main activity) and 5.6 hours providing secondary care (where child care was done at the same time as a leisure or household activity). How do these stats compare to your life? Let us know in the comments section.

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