Fewer Shoppers

Newly released statistics from the 2011 American Time Use Survey provide a glimpse of how the Great Recession has changed daily life. Those changes, in turn, have taken a toll on the economy. The decline in shopping is a good example.

Women are the primary shoppers, and fewer women shopped in 2011 than in 2007. On an average day in 2011, 46.6 percent of women aged 15 or older shopped in a store, by telephone, or online. This compares with a larger 48.2 percent of women who shopped for goods and services on an average day in 2007. Do the math and that's 2 million fewer shoppers per day than would have been in the marketplace if the percentage who shopped had remained the same.

To add insult to injury, the women who shopped on an average day in 2011 spent less time doing so--only 1.77 hours in 2011 versus 1.92 hours in 2007.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey