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Chart: A Global Look at How People Spend Their Time

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How People Globally Spend Their Time

A Global Look at How People Spend Their Time

We all have the same 24 hours in a day, but we donโ€™t spend them the same way. Some prioritize family time or household chores, while others cherish a good nightโ€™s sleep or seeing friends.

This chart from Our World in Data compares the average time allocated across various day-to-day activities, from paid work to leisurely activities.

The data for the 33 countries profiled come from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)โ€™s Time Use database, for ages 15 through 64 years old.

Countries with the Highest Time Spent Per Activity

As the chart shows, basic patternsโ€”work, rest, and playโ€”emerge across the board.

When it comes to paid work, Japan emerges the highest on this list with approximately 5.5 hours per day. However, this country also has some of the highest overtime in a workweek. In contrast, European countries such as France and Spain report nearly half the same hours (less than 3 hours) of paid work per day on average.

Certain trends, however, transcend cultural boundaries. Those in Mexico find themselves spending significant portions of the day (3 hours or more) on housework, as do those in Portugal.

Activity categoryCountry with highest time spentTime spent in minutes
Paid work๐Ÿ‡ฏ๐Ÿ‡ต Japan326 (Approx. 5.5 hrs)
Education๐Ÿ‡ฐ๐Ÿ‡ท South Korea57ย 
Care for household members๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ช Ireland61
Housework๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฝ Mexico187 (Approx. 3 hrs)
Shopping๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช Germany32
Other unpaid work & volunteering๐Ÿ‡ฏ๐Ÿ‡ต Japan98 (Approx. 1.5 hrs)
Sleep๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฆ South Africa553 (Approx. 9 hrs)
Eatingย ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท France133 (Approx. 2 hours)
Personal care๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท France107 (Approx. 1 hr 45 min)
Sports๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ Spain42
Attending events๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ช Ireland42
Seeing friends๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฆ South Africa82
TV and radio๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ U.S.148 (Approx. 2.5 hrs)
Other leisure
(Religious/ civic duties, or unspecified)
๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ด Norway154 (Approx. 2.5 hrs)

As the saying goes, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. In the realm of leisure activities, those in the U.S. spend approximately 2.5 hours consuming media in a day, a number that has risen even higher during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, another interesting cultural pattern is that people in France spend the most time eating, approximately 2 hours per day. These durations are similar to those in other Mediterranean countries such as Greece, Italy, and Spainโ€”perhaps because meals are viewed as a social activity in these cultures.

Gender Disparities in Time Spent

Digging deeper, another way to look at how people spend their time globally is through the lens of gender.

Women spend nearly three times more in unpaid care work compared to menโ€”a whopping total of 1.1 trillion hours each yearโ€”which means a lot less leisure time. This inequality is clearly defined by country in the following scatterplot:

In Norway, both men and women have equally high levels of leisure timeโ€”though it’s a rare example of such a case.

Meanwhile, in countries like India or China, significant gender gaps prevent women from moving up the socioeconomic ladder, potentially costing trillions of dollars to the global economy.

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Charted: The Number of Democracies Globally

How many democracies does the world have? This visual shows the change since 1945 and the top nations becoming more (and less) democratic.

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Charted: The Number of Democracies Globally

The end of World War II in 1945 was a turning point for democracies around the world.

Before this critical turning point in geopolitics, democracies made up only a small number of the world’s countries, both legally and in practice. However, over the course of the next six decades, the number of democratic nations would more than quadruple.

Interestingly, studies have found that this trend has recently reversed as of the 2010s, with democracies and non-democracies now in a deadlock.

In this visualization, Staffan Landin uses data from V-DEMโ€™s Electoral Democratic Index (EDI) to highlight the changing face of global politics over the past two decades and the nations that contributed the most to this change.

The Methodology

V-DEM’s EDI attempts to measure democratic development in a comprehensive way, through the contributions of 3,700 experts from countries around the world.

Instead of relying on each nation’s legally recognized system of government, the EDI analyzes the level of electoral democracy in countries on a range of indicators, including:

  • Free and fair elections
  • Rule of law
  • Alternative sources of information and association
  • Freedom of expression

Countries are assigned a score on a scale from 0 to 1, with higher scores indicating a higher level of democracy. Each is also categorized into four types of functional government, from liberal and electoral democracies to electoral and closed autocracies.

Which Countries Have Declined the Most?

The EDI found that numerous countries around the world saw declines in democracy over the past two decades. Here are the 10 countries that saw the steepest decline in EDI score since 2010:

CountryDemocracy Index (2010)Democracy Index (2022)Points Lost
๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡บ Hungary0.800.46-34
๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡ฑ Poland0.890.59-30
๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡ธ Serbia0.610.34-27
๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ท Tรผrkiye0.550.28-27
๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ India0.710.44-27
๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฑ Mali0.510.25-26
๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ญ Thailand0.440.20-24
๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ซ Afghanistan0.380.16-22
๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ท Brazil0.880.66-22
๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ฏ Benin0.640.42-22

Central and Eastern Europe was home to three of the countries seeing the largest declines in democracy. Hungary, Poland, and Serbia lead the table, with Hungary and Serbia in particular dropping below scores of 0.5.

Some of the world’s largest countries by population also decreased significantly, including India and Brazil. Across most of the top 10, the “freedom of expression” indicator was hit particularly hard, with notable increases in media censorship to be found in Afghanistan and Brazil.

Countries Becoming More Democratic

Here are the 10 countries that saw the largest increase in EDI score since 2010:

CountryDemocracy Index (2010)Democracy Index (2022)Points Gained
๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ฒ Armenia0.340.74+40
๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ฏ Fiji0.140.40+26
๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ฒ The Gambia0.250.50+25
๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡จ Seychelles0.450.67+22
๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฌ Madagascar0.280.48+20
๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ณ Tunisia0.400.56+16
๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡ฐ Sri Lanka0.420.57+15
๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ผ Guinea-Bissau0.410.56+15
๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฉ Moldova0.590.74+15
๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ต Nepal0.460.59+13

Armenia, Fiji, and Seychelles saw significant improvement in the autonomy of their electoral management bodies in the last 10 years. Partially as a result, both Armenia and Seychelles have seen their scores rise above 0.5.

The Gambia also saw great improvement across many election indicators, including the quality of voter registries, vote buying, and election violence. It was one of five African countries to make the top 10 most improved democracies.

With the total number of democracies and non-democracies almost tied over the past four years, it is hard to predict the political atmosphere in the future.

Want to know more about democracy in today’s world? Check out our global breakdown of each country’s democratic score in Mapped: The State of Global Democracy in 2022.
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