Data story
How the world spends its day
Everyone gets the same 1,440 minutes. Time-use surveys, where thousands of people write down what they did every few minutes, show how differently countries spend them.
The record holders
Averages for people aged 15 to 64 in the OECD time-use data, so they include people who don't work at all. That's why paid work looks lower than a typical working day.
Who has the most time for themselves?
The OECD adds up leisure and personal care: sleep, eating, washing, socializing, sport, TV and hobbies. France and Spain lead, with more than 16 hours of a 24-hour day; Mexico and Turkey have the least, around 12.5 to 12.7, largely because more time goes to long working hours and unpaid work at home.
Hours per day, leisure plus personal care. OECD Better Life Index (2017 edition); survey years range from 2000 to 2016 depending on the country.
The leisure gap between women and men
In every country with data, men report more free time than women, mostly because women do more unpaid work: cooking, cleaning and caring for children and relatives. The gap is smallest in New Zealand (11 minutes a day) and largest in Italy (85 minutes).
Leisure per day, hours and minutes (women · men), with the survey year. Our World in Data, from OECD and national time-use surveys.
Hours worked in a year
Counting only people with jobs, the differences are just as large. A worker in China puts in about 1,000 more hours a year than a worker in Germany, the equivalent of about 25 extra 40-hour weeks.
Average annual hours worked per worker, 2023. Our World in Data.
Words for time well spent
Some languages have a single word for a way of spending time that others need a sentence to describe.
| Word | Language | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Sobremesa | Spanish | The unhurried time spent talking at the table after a meal is finished. |
| Feierabend | German | The end of the working day, and the free evening that begins with it. |
| Friluftsliv | Norwegian | "Open-air life": time spent outdoors, in any weather, for its own sake. |
| Fika | Swedish | A daily pause for coffee, something sweet and conversation. |
| Hygge | Danish | Cozy, unhurried time with good company, often by candlelight. |
| Dolce far niente | Italian | "The sweetness of doing nothing": idleness as a pleasure, not a waste. |
| Keyif | Turkish | Quiet enjoyment of the moment, often over tea. |
| Craic | Irish | Good times, banter and conversation with friends. |
| Ppalli-ppalli | Korean | "Hurry, hurry": the fast pace often linked to Korea's rapid modernization. |
| Ikigai | Japanese | A reason for being: the sense that your days are worth getting up for. |
Words like these describe ideals, not what everyone in a country actually does. The numbers above are the better guide to that.
Your own 1,440 minutes
A day is 1,440 minutes and a year is 8,760 hours. The time management guide, the timer and the stopwatch can help you see where yours go. For how different cultures think about time itself, read The Clock and the River and Sacred time.
Sources
- OECD Better Life Index: time devoted to leisure and personal care (via Wikipedia)
- Our World in Data: time women and men spend on leisure
- Our World in Data: annual working hours per worker
- Our World in Data: time use
- World Economic Forum: how people spend their time, from OECD time-use data
Checked October 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.