Gender Differences in Experiencing US Daily Life

Abstract

The American Time-Use Survey (ATUS), conducted by the US Bureau of theCensus for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has been collecting data on howAmericans spend their time since 2003, using the method of the daily timediary. In these diaries, survey respondents are asked to recall all of theiractivities across the previous 24 hours. In 2010, the ATUS began supplementingthese simple activity accounts with ratings on five psychological states (sad,tired, stress, pain and happy) from a Social Well-Being (SWB) index designed tocapture how these respondents feel as they engage in these daily activities.Thus, this ATUS study basically provides a continuous national monitor ofAmericans’ everyday subjective quality of life (QOL)—and in “real time” aspersonally experienced by respondents. Analysis of these 2010-12 ATUS SWBratings from more than 12,000 Americans aged 15 and older reveal that womenscore significantly higher than men on all five factors, even though only oneof the adjectives (happy) was in the positive direction. Thus, US womendescribed their daily activities as more stressful, tiring, sad and painful,but at the same time also describing their activities as making them feelhappier (suggesting that women see their lives as more engaging, intense orenergizing). In order to control for this gender difference, a simple scale wasderived from two of the items that conveyed basically the same emotional state,namely happy and sad. When these ratings on two items were paired, virtually nogender difference was found; nor were many gender differences found when theyrated these feelings on the same activity.However, there were dramaticsubjective differences across activities that were largely shared by both menand women, with child play, religious, volunteer and fitness activities ratednear the top of enjoyment and with medical, housework and work activitiesnearer the bottom. These results seem generally consistent with enjoymentratings in earlier national time-use surveys.