Family responsibilities are also an important determinant of how much free time a person has. In 1997, people with dependent children had significantly less free time than people without dependent children. The amount of free time available to parents with dependent children gradually increased with the age of their youngest child. The amount of free time available to people without dependent children is largely a function of their labour force participation, household responsibilities and, to a lesser extent, family responsibilities. This reflects the younger group's relatively low participation in full-time employment, and fewer household responsibilities, since a relatively high proportion are still single and live with their parents.
Women have less free time than men regardless of age, employment status or family responsibilities.
For any person, the total amount of time spent on main free-time activities is equal to their total amount of free time. Secondary free-time activities were done at the same time as some other main activity. For most people, time spent on all free-time activities is greater than their total amount of free time. The amount of free time available has an important influence on how much time a person can spend on recreation, leisure and other free-time activities. Consequently, they managed to spend about the same amount of time, on average, as men on free-time activities even though they had 25 minutes less free time per day.