Time pressure and time spent with friends over the last 30 years
Released: 2025-06-17
Today, Statistics Canada is releasing data that shed light on social connections and well-being spanning more than three decades. New tables and an infographic provide information on feeling pressed for time and how much time Canadians spent alone, with family and with friends.
Canadians feel more pressed for time than in the last three decades
In 2022, Canadians reported feeling the most pressed for time since the early 1990s, when Statistics Canada began collecting data on this topic. Indeed, almost one in four Canadians (24.2%) felt high levels of time pressure in 2022, compared with about one in seven (15.0%) in 1992.
Chart 1
Percentage of Canadians who report feeling high time pressure, by gender, 1992 to 2022
This all-time high was because of a sharp increase in 2022 after a slight decline throughout the early 2000s. Research has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic sparked longer-term societal change for Canadians, including in the years following the outbreak. These changes include demographic shifts, such as population aging, economic shocks to affordability and employment, and impacts on mental health and well-being.
A recent study showed that teleworking affected how employed Canadians used their time, as well as their well-being and feelings of time pressure.
Women consistently more likely to feel more pressed for time than men
Despite changes in men's and women's roles over the last several decades, including in paid work and unpaid housework and caregiving, women continued to feel more pressed for time than men.
In 2022, for example, just over one in four women (26.5%) reported feeling high time pressure, compared with one in five men (21.8%).
Time with friends has declined steadily
Chart 2
Percentage of Canadians who saw their friends on an average day, 1986 to 2022
For over 30 years, Canadians have been spending less and less time with friends. In 1986, just under half (47.9%) of Canadians saw friends on an average day. In 2022, this proportion dropped to just under one in five (19.3%). For people who did see friends, the average time spent together declined from 5.0 hours per day in 1986 to 3.8 hours in 2022.
Chart 3
Average time with friends, in hours, for those who saw friends on the diary day, 1986 and 2022
These downward trends in seeing friends coincided with more Canadians worrying that they did not spend enough time with family and friends (33.7% in 1992 compared with 46.3% in 2022).
Time spent with friends declines for all age groups, but gap narrows between youth and older Canadians
While time spent with friends declined for all age groups, working-age Canadians (25 to 64 years) recorded the sharpest drop over the 30-year period, with their likelihood of seeing a friend on an average day declining by two-thirds. This is mirrored by findings that working-age adults were the least likely to report having high satisfaction with their friendships during the third quarter of 2023.
Chart 4
Percentage of Canadians spending time with friends on a given day, by age group, 1986 to 2022
Canadians aged 15 to 24 years also saw a large decline in time spent with friends, with a decrease of more than 30 percentage points (-31.6%) from 1986 to 2022. Although this change narrowed the gap among age groups over time, young Canadians remained the most likely to spend time with friends.
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Note to readers
The Time Use Survey (TUS) is a cross-sectional survey under the General Social Statistics Program and was conducted in 1986, 1992, 1998, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2022 (from July 2022 to July 2023).
The survey has a target population of non-institutionalized persons aged 15 years and older living in the provinces. The TUS collects a 24-hour time diary on how respondents spent their time during the day, including what they were doing, how long they did it for and who else was present during each activity. The survey also collects additional information on well-being and time pressure, paid work, transportation, and sociodemographic characteristics.
Time spent alone and with others is measured by the time diary. For each activity of the day, respondents were asked, "Who was with you?" The duration of time is then summed across the day. Time spent sleeping or in personal care activities was excluded.
Time pressure is measured by the respondent's agreement with 10 individual statements on different dimensions of feeling pressed for time. High time pressure is defined as saying yes to seven or more of these statements. The statements include the following:
- Do you plan to slow down in the coming year?
- Do you consider yourself a workaholic?
- When you need more time, do you tend to cut back on your sleep?
- At the end of the day, do you often feel that you have not accomplished what you had set out to do due to lack of time?
- Do you worry that you don't spend enough time with your family and friends?
- Do you feel that you're constantly under stress trying to accomplish more than you can handle?
- Do you feel trapped in a daily routine?
- Do you feel that you just don't have time for fun anymore?
- Do you often feel under stress when you don't have enough time?
- Would you like to spend more time alone?
For more information about this survey (questionnaires, definitions, data sources and methods used), please see Surveys and statistical programs - Time Use Survey.
In 2022, information on gender (including categories for male, female and other [please specify]) was collected. From 1992 to 2015, a binary variable for sex (male, female) was collected. In this analysis, the category "women+" includes women and some non-binary persons from 2022 and females from previous years. The category "men+" includes men and some non-binary persons from 2022 and males from previous years.
Products
The infographic, "Pressed for time," which is part of Statistics Canada — Infographics (11-627-M), is now available.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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