Everyone has 24 hours in a day. This equates to about 190 billion man-hours each day, multiplied by the world population of 8 billion. How we allocate these hours affects our environment and shapes our life experience. A team from McGill University conducted an extensive study to gain insight into how the citizens of the world use their time. They collected data on various economic and non-economic activities and provided an unprecedented glimpse into a typical day on Earth.
“We’re dealing with global challenges right now, and this requires new ways of looking at how the world works,” says Eric Galbraith, professor in McGill University’s Department of Earth Systems Sciences and senior author of the newly published study. inside PNAS. “Understanding the big picture of how the global human system works is critical so we can see where the potential for change lies if we are to sustainably manage climate change and biodiversity loss, adapt to rapid technological change, and achieve global development goals.”
A holistic bird’s-eye view of our joint efforts
“We wanted to know: What does the distribution of humanity’s time look like on average for all people and all countries?” Adds William Faisel, Ph.D. McGill University’s Department of Earth System Sciences student and first author of the study. “In other words, if the world were an average person, how would their days pass?”
To find out, the research team looked at time use and workforce data collected from more than 140 countries (representing 87% of the world’s population) between 2000 and 2019 (to avoid any impact of the COVID pandemic).
World Humanity Day, which includes both work and non-business activities. Credit: McGill University
Efficiency and desired results
The researchers classified everything people do during the day, including work and non-work activities, according to the purpose of the activity. They used 24 categories divided into three major groups:
- Designed to change the outside world (including providing or changing food, energy, buildings, environmental care, etc.)
- Focus directly on the human mind or body (including concerns about cleanliness, appearance, mood and health of self and others, as well as education, religion, hobbies, communication, sports, media, entertainment, etc.)
- Organization of activities in society (e.g. transport, trade, finance, law and administration etc.)
They then manually classified nearly 4,000 unique events. And I’ve made incredible discoveries.
We focus on ourselves and others most of every day
The researchers found that the largest portion of time was spent on human-centered activities, just over 9 hours. Sleeping or staying in bed is an additional 9 hours (total estimate includes teenagers who tend to sleep longer). The remaining 6 hours take approximately 1 hour to grow our food, harvest, cook, travel, roam and distribute tasks (such as trade, finance, sales, law, administration, policing). In contrast to the 45 minutes spent cleaning and maintaining our homes, it only takes 1 minute of a global day to dispose of waste. The entire infrastructure and construction of the building is completed in about 15 minutes.
Global Economy Day shows the average time the world’s population spends at work on average. Credit: McGill University
Surprisingly, the time spent on activities such as eating, daily travel, hygiene and care, and cooking does not systematically vary with the material well-being of the population. In contrast, the time spent growing and gathering food varied widely according to wealth; It was more than 1 hour in low-income countries and less than 5 minutes in high-income countries.
Only one-tenth of the day is devoted to economic activities
As the survey covered both economic and non-economic activities, the proportion of total time in each of the categories described above represents people engaged in economic activities (eg doctors and nurses, cooks and farm workers, etc.).
The team estimates that the entire global economy takes up about 2.6 hours of the average human day. These economic activities are dominated by agriculture and livestock, followed by distribution activities such as trade, finance, law and manufacturing. While a total of 2.6 hours may seem small, for two-thirds of the world’s working-age population (ages 15-64) that makes up the workforce, this amounts to roughly 40 hours of work per week.
The research results provide a unique perspective on how economic activity fits into the overall fabric of human life on a global scale. They also suggest that there is too much opportunity to devote time to certain activities that take place in about seven minutes, such as materials extraction, energy supply, and waste management. Source
Source: Port Altele
