Global time use for human-Earth system interactions

Time use provides a universal physically conserved variable for measuring human activity at multiple scales. While time use research spans several disciplines, focus has been mainly on the national scale, and global analysis is just now becoming possible with the development of a suitable dataset. Emergent global patterns in time allocation can constrain the possibility space of human systems represented in future scenarios, for example by assessing the implied change in time use for post-growth economies or from transitioning to sustainable agriculture. Here we present a synthesis of globally gap-filled, demographically consistent time use data across 36 physical outcome-oriented activities, and pair it with a long-term reconstruction of labour by sector. The complete set of daily and economic activities reveals that the employed share of the global population has been constant over time at about 40% and mean working hours average 2.6 hours per day per capita. We also demonstrate how person-hours can be downscaled to 1-degree spatial resolution to link labour activity to other spatial features, such as cropland, extraction sites, or urban areas. The dataset is intended to enable further high-level research into human-Earth interactions.