For two decades, Americans have been sleeping more. An analysis of over 239,000 time diaries from the American Time Use Survey shows that average nightly sleep rose from 8 hours and 30 minutes in 2003 to 8 hours and 55 minutes in 2024, a gain of roughly 25 minutes over the 21-year period. But beneath this encouraging headline lies a more complicated story: the increase has not been shared equally. Higher-income and higher-educated adults still sleep less than others, and those living with an elderly family member face a persistent sleep penalty that the overall trend has barely touched.
What they found
Researchers Yusong Zeng and Samuel Ken-En Gan analyzed 21 waves of the American Time Use Survey, or ATUS, covering 239,930 person-days from 2003 to 2024 (excluding 2020 due to pandemic-related data disruption). Using survey-weighted linear regression, they estimated both unadjusted and fully adjusted trends in self-reported sleep duration across demographic and socioeconomic categories.
The unadjusted data show an average increase of 1.21 minutes per year. After adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic factors, the trend accelerated to 1.73 minutes per year, amounting to approximately 36 minutes of additional sleep across the full study period.
Sex differences were negligible. Women and men showed nearly identical trends, with no meaningful divergence emerging over the two decades.
Racial differences existed at baseline but narrowed over time. Black respondents reported sleeping 9 to 29 minutes more per day than White respondents in 2003. However, the gap shrank significantly, with a Black-by-year interaction of negative 0.737 minutes per year (p < 0.001). Critically, the racial and ethnic differences in unadjusted trends were largely explained by socioeconomic factors such as income, education, employment, and household composition, suggesting that structural conditions rather than race itself drive most of the variation.
Working-age adults aged 25 to 65 consistently slept less than young adults aged 15 to 24, by 12 to 33 minutes per day. This gap persisted across all 21 survey years.
Co-residence with an elderly household member was associated with shorter sleep throughout the entire period, and the gap did not close. This finding held even after adjusting for income and employment, pointing to caregiving demands as a distinct and durable source of sleep disadvantage.
Higher-income and higher-educated adults consistently slept less than their lower-income, less-educated counterparts, a pattern the authors describe as a form of sleep inequality. The disparities narrowed modestly over time, but remained present at the end of the study period.
Why it matters
The overall upward trend is good news for population health. The authors attribute it to growing public awareness of sleep health, lifestyle changes, and a cultural shift toward earlier bedtimes. Sleep science has received unprecedented media and clinical attention over the past two decades, and these data suggest that awareness is translating into behavior at the population level.
But the persistence of socioeconomic and caregiving-related disparities challenges the idea that sleep is simply a matter of personal choice or health literacy. Sleep, the researchers argue, functions as a “luxury” that is less attainable for disadvantaged groups. Those with lower incomes, less education, or caregiving responsibilities at home may face structural barriers to adequate rest: irregular work schedules, multiple jobs, caregiving demands in the night, or living environments that make consistent sleep difficult.
The finding on co-residence with elderly household members is particularly relevant as populations age. Multigenerational living is becoming more common in the United States, whether by choice or economic necessity. If older adults waking during the night disrupt the sleep of their co-residing adult children, the consequence may be a hidden but growing contributor to population-level sleep deprivation that policy and clinical interventions have not yet addressed.
The narrowing of the Black-White sleep gap when adjusting for socioeconomic factors also carries an important implication. It suggests that closing gaps in income, education, and employment could reduce sleep disparities without requiring sleep-specific interventions. Improving the structural conditions that shape how people live may improve how they sleep as a downstream benefit.
Limits
The ATUS relies on self-reported time diaries, not objective sleep measurement. Sleep duration is derived from the reported interval between going to bed and waking up, which likely overestimates actual sleep time because it does not account for wake-after-sleep-onset. The survey also excluded 2020, so the immediate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on sleep are not reflected in the trend line. Additionally, the study uses repeated cross-sectional data, tracking population averages over time rather than following individuals, which means it cannot separate aging effects from period effects.
Bottom line
Americans are sleeping more than they were two decades ago, a finding that aligns with growing sleep health awareness and broader lifestyle changes. But the data also reveal a persistent and structural gap: those with fewer socioeconomic resources and those caring for elderly family members are not sharing equally in the gains. Improving population sleep health may require more than public awareness campaigns. It may demand attention to the conditions that determine who has the freedom to sleep well and who does not.
Source
Zeng Y, Gan SKE. Trends in sleep duration among U.S. population aged 15 years and older, 2003-2024: A sociodemographic analysis of ATUS data. Soc Sci Med. 2026;406:119627. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2026.119627. PMID: 42503279.