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Time spent providing primary care to household children in 2025

September 24, 2026

In 2025, adults living in households with children under age 6 spent an average of 2.3 hours per day providing primary childcare to household children. This includes 58 minutes providing physical care and 34 minutes playing or doing hobbies with children, among other activities. Primary childcare is childcare that is done as a main activity.

Chart Image
Chart Data

Average hours per day adults spent caring for household children as a primary activity by age of youngest household child, 2025 annual averages
Childcare activity	Under age 6	Between the ages of 6 and 17
Total, caring for household children as a primary activity	2.30	0.79
Talking to/with children	0.04	0.05
Attending children's events	0.06	0.05
Reading to/with children	0.07	0.02
Education-related activities	0.12	0.10
Looking after children	0.13	0.03
Other childcare activities	0.15	0.11
Travel related to care of household children	0.22	0.18
Playing/doing hobbies with children	0.57	0.06
Physical care	0.96	0.18
Note: Categories do not sum to totals due to rounding. Includes people 18 years and over living in households with children under 18, whether or not they provided childcare.

Adults living in households where the youngest child was between the ages of 6 and 17 spent an average of 47 minutes per day providing primary childcare to household children. This was one-third of the time spent providing primary childcare by adults living in households with children under age 6. This included 11 minutes spent traveling related to the care of household children and 11 minutes providing physical care to household children, among other activities.

These data are from the American Time Use Survey. For more information, see “American Time Use Survey — 2025 Results.” We also have more charts on activities and time use.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Time spent providing primary care to household children in 2025 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2026/time-spent-providing-primary-care-to-household-children-in-2025.htm (visited September 26, 2026).

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