by Data provides overview of activities from working at home to doing homework, research and watching TV
WASHINGTON — A study released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier this past summer sheds light on how people spend time at home on activities ranging from working and entertaining to reading or watching TV.
Tracking home life habits from 2024, the last full year for which data was available, it offers similar information from our own previous Consumer Insights Now research detailing how consumers spend their time at home.
A key takeaway from the data is that many people are still working at home. For example, some 33% of those surveyed said they spent time working at home, compared with 35% the year before.
However, the share of men that spent some time working from home fell to 29% in 2024 compared with 34% in 2023, while the number of women that spent some time working from home remained at 36%. This indicates that home office furniture, be it a writing desk or an executive desk, remains an important category, as do companion bookcases, file cabinets and other storage pieces. And considering the number of women working at home, it also suggests that the category offer design aesthetics that appeal to working women and not just men.
The study also noted that workers with higher levels of education were more likely to work at home than those with less education. For example, some 50% of those employed people with a bachelor’s degree or higher did some work at home compared with 18% of those with a high school diploma and no college. The implication here is that those workers with more education would need some type of home office space and home office type furniture.
On an average day, the survey found, 80% of people were involved in household activities such as housework, cooking, lawn care or household management, such as handling bills. The average amount of time spent on these activities was about two hours per day. Those adults without a job who were living with children under 18 spent an hour longer doing household activities per day for a total of 2.9 hours compared with 1.8 hours.
Of course, household activities can vary widely depending on the type and size of the house, the age of the house and other factors such as a desire to prepare meals at home. Some 87% of women and 74% of men spend time on household activities, with women spending an average of 2.7 hours per day and men spending about 2.3 hours per day.
In addition, more people did housework on weekend days than on weekdays — on average 41%, compared with 36%. The survey also noted that people were slightly more likely to do food preparation and cleanup on weekdays than weekend days — 64% versus 62%.
People also spent much of their free time watching TV. This amounted to about 2.6 hours per day, which is more than half the overall time spent — about 5.1 hours per day — on leisure activities.
This was followed by socializing and communicating, as well as playing games, including computer games and other computer pastimes. According to the survey, individuals spent 35 minutes on an average day socializing and communicating and 34 minutes playing games and using a computer for leisure. They also spent twice as much time socializing and communicating on weekend days (56 minutes) than on weekdays (26 minutes).
Reading was another popular activity, although the survey said this varied by age. For example, those 75 and over spend 46 minutes per day reading compared to 9 minutes for those ages 15-19, who spent 1.3 hours playing games or using a computer for leisure on a typical day. Those 75 and over spent 26 minutes per day on a computer.
Aside from sleeping, which took up the most hours per day for men and women respectively, for an average of nine hours per day, other activities in the home included doing homework and research, caring for and helping members of the family, including children, and lawn and garden care, to name several.
With this type of data, we receive a clearer idea of how people spend their day both in and outside the home. While many of the activities inside the home seem obvious, from the amount of time sleeping to preparing meals to watching TV, they are worth noting because they indicate what types of furniture might best suit those needs whether it’s a new sofa or sectional for the living room or a new dining set for the kitchen or sunroom.
As they seek to learn more about their customer, sales associates can also ask people about their home and where they spend the most indoors to determine if there’s a need to update furniture in that particular area. Obviously everyone’s needs are different. The good news is there is plenty of furniture to address those needs and then some.
