## Context The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) is the Nation’s first federally administered, continuous survey on time use in the United States. The goal of the survey is to measure how people divide their time among life’s activities. In ATUS, individuals are randomly selected from a subset of households that have completed their eighth and final month of interviews for the Current Population Survey (CPS). ATUS respondents are interviewed only one time about how they spent their time on the previous day, where they were, and whom they were with. The survey is sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The major purpose of ATUS is to develop nationally representative estimates of how people spend their time. Many ATUS users are interested in the amount of time Americans spend doing unpaid, nonmarket work, which could include unpaid childcare, eldercare, housework, and volunteering. The survey also provides information on the amount of time people spend in many other activities, such as religious activities, socializing, exercising, and relaxing. In addition to collecting data about what people did on the day before the interview, ATUS collects information about where and with whom each activity occurred, and whether the activities were done for one’s job or business. Demographic information—including sex, race, age, educational attainment, occupation, income, marital status, and the presence of children in the household—also is available for each respondent. Although some of these variables are updated during the ATUS interview, most of this information comes from earlier CPS interviews, as the ATUS sample is drawn from a subset of households that have completed month 8 of the CPS. The user guide can be found [here](http://www.bls.gov/tus/atususersguide.pdf). ## Content There are 8 datasets containing microdata from 2003-2015: * **Respondent file**: The Respondent file contains information about ATUS respondents, including their labor force status and earnings. * **Roster file**: The Roster file contains information about household members and nonhousehold children (under 18) of ATUS respondents. It includes information such as age and sex. * **Activity file**: The Activity file contains information about how ATUS respondents spent their diary day. It includes information such as activity codes, activity start and stop times, and locations. Because Activity codes have changed somewhat between 2003 and 2015, this file uses activity codes that appear in the [2003-2015 ATUS Coding Lexicon (PDF)](http://www.bls.gov/tus/lexiconnoex0315.pdf). * **Activity summary file**: The Activity summary file contains information about the total time each ATUS respondent spent doing each activity on the diary day. Because Activity codes have changed somewhat between 2003 and 2015, this file uses activity codes that appear in the [2003-2015 ATUS Coding Lexicon (PDF)](http://www.bls.gov/tus/lexiconnoex0315.pdf). * **Who file**: The Who file includes codes that indicate who was present during each activity. * **CPS 2003-2015 file**: The ATUS-CPS file contains information about each household member of all individuals selected to participate in ATUS. The information on the ATUS-CPS file was collected 2 to 5 months before the ATUS interview. * **Eldercare Roster file**: The ATUS Eldercare Roster file contains information about people for whom the respondent provided care. Eldercare data have been collected since 2011. * **Replicate weights file**: The Replicate weights file contains miscellaneous ATUS weights. The ATUS interview data dictionary can be found [here](http://www.bls.gov/tus/atusintcodebk0315.pdf). The ATUS Current Population Survey (CPS) data dictionary can be found [here](http://www.bls.gov/tus/atuscpscodebk0315.pdf). The ATUS occupation and industry codes can be found [here](http://www.bls.gov/tus/iocodes.htm). The ATUS activity lexicon can be found [here](http://www.bls.gov/tus/lexiconnoex0315.pdf). ## Acknowledgements The original datasets can be found [here](http://www.bls.gov/tus/datafiles_0315.htm). ## Inspiration How do daily activities differ by: * labor force status * income * household composition * geographical region * disability status