Social & Demographic Trends

Nap Time

by Paul Taylor, Pew Research Center
July 29, 2009

Feeling drowsy? You're not alone. On a typical day, a third of the adults (34%) in the United States take a nap.

Napping thrives among all demographic groups, but it's more widespread among some than others, according to a Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,488 adults.

More men than women report that they caught a little snooze in the past 24 hours -- 38% vs. 31%. This gender gap occurs almost entirely among older adults. More than four-in-ten ( 41%) men ages 50 and older say they napped in the past day, compared with just 28% of women of the same age. Below the age of 50, men and women are about equally likely to say they napped in the past day (35% vs. 34%).

There are distinctive racial patterns to napping. Half of the black adults in our survey say they napped in the past 24 hours, compared with just a third of whites and Hispanics.

Napping is quite common at the lower end of the income scale; some 42% of adults with an annual income below $30,000 report they napped in the past day. As income rises, napping declines. However, at the upper end of the scale (adults whose annual income is $100,000 or above) the tendency to nap revives and reverts to the mean.

Napping spikes among the old -- but only among the very old. More than half of adults ages 80 and older say they napped in the past day. Among every other age group in the survey -- including both the young (ages 18 to 29) and the old (ages 70 to 79) -- about a third say they napped in the past 24 hours.

These findings are based on responses to a question in a wide-ranging survey about aging that asked people if they had engaged in each of 10 different activities in the past 24 hours -- among them driving a car, getting some exercise, going shopping, watching television, using the internet, praying and taking a nap.¹

Trouble Sleeping?

The survey also asked respondents if they had trouble sleeping in the past 24 hours -- and, not surprisingly, it finds a correlation between nap-taking and trouble sleeping.

Continue reading the full report at pewsocialtrends.org.

_{1. The question did not specify what is meant by a nap. Presumably for some respondents it might mean dozing off for just a few minutes while for others it might mean a more prolonged sleep.}