Time spent caring for household children in 2023

In 2023, adults living in households with children under age 6 spent an average of 2.3 hours per day providing primary childcare to household children. Primary childcare is childcare that is done as a main activity. Some of the childcare activities that these adults spent the most time doing on an average day were providing physical care (54 minutes) and playing or doing hobbies with children (35 minutes).

Adults living in households where the youngest child was between the ages of 6 and 17 spent an average of 52 minutes per day providing primary childcare to household children. This was less than half the time adults with younger household children spent. Adults living in households where the youngest child was between the ages of 6 and 17 spent 12 minutes traveling related to the care of household children and 9 minutes providing physical care to household children on an average day.

Adults living in households with at least one child under age 13 spent an average of 5.1 hours per day providing secondary childcare (that is, they had at least one child in their care while doing activities other than primary childcare). Secondary childcare was most commonly provided while doing leisure activities (1.9 hours) or household activities (1.3 hours).

These data are from the American Time Use Survey. For more information, see “American Time Use Survey — 2023 Results.” We also have more charts on American Time Use Survey data. All major activity categories include related travel time.