Working More, Sleeping Less

How do Americans spend their day compared with 35 years ago? For one thing, their leisure time has not increased at all, contrary to popular notion. Rather, American men today are spending more time on the job, a lot of it admittedly of the moonlighting variety, and their wives are spending even more time taking care of their children and homes.

University of Michigan Sociologist John P. Robinson, 31, told the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco last week that a lengthy survey indicates that leisure time takes up about five hours a day, about the same portion of the day as in the 1930s, and that television now accounts for about a third of it.

But Americans have not lost interest in other things. In addition to working longer, they spend more time on hobbies, washing and grooming themselves, and activities away from the home. But just as radio listening has lost ground, so have reading, eating at home, visiting relatives, playing cards, dancing, pleasure driving, and participation in sports.

Furthermore, both men and women now sleep less.

The hard-pressed American house wife may already have suspected the outcome of Robinson's research into the laborsaving qualities of clothes washers, dishwashers, and other automatic devices at home. "The expectation that time on housework would decrease with the advent of more household appliances is not supported by the data," he says dryly.

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