After a long hiatus, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), with support from UN Women, launched a new large-scale survey of citizens’ daily lives, collecting data from July through December 2025. The main findings of the survey are as follows:
Moldovans aged 15 and older spend, on average, nearly half of their daily time (48.5%, or 11.6 hours) on personal hygiene and care (in 2012 – 47.1%);
– 10.9% of the day (2.6 hours) is spent on paid work (14.2% in 2012);
– 21.0% (5.1 hours) is spent on unpaid work (19.2% in 2012),
– 18.1% (4.3 hours) is spent on leisure (in 2012 – 17.5%),
– 1.5% (0.4 hours) – on studying (in 2012 – 0.5%).
What do people have time for?
Compared to 2012, the structure of time spent has changed: the share of personal time has increased, while the share of time devoted to productive activities has decreased. Thus, the share of productive activities, including both paid and unpaid work, decreased from 33.4% in 2012 (8.0 hours per day) to 31.9% in 2025 (7.7 hours per day).
At the same time, the share of personal (non-productive) activities increased from 66.7% to 68.1%, indicating a more pronounced focus on personal hygiene, leisure, and other activities in the private sphere, according to official statistics.
The gender breakdown did not reveal any particular surprises—women’s and men’s time allocations traditionally differ. Women spend significantly more time on household chores and childcare. Men traditionally devote more time to paid work (market employment) and have a greater amount of net free time during the day.
According to the survey results, women devoted a larger portion of their personal time to unpaid work compared to men (23.7% of women’s daily time versus 18.3% for men). On the other hand, men spent more time on paid work, which accounted for 13.0% of their daily time compared to 9.1% for women. In addition, leisure time accounted for a larger share of men’s schedules (19.2%) than women’s (16.7%).
An analysis by place of residence shows that urban residents, on average, devoted more time to paid work (13.1% compared to 9.0% in rural areas) and leisure (19.3% compared to 17.0%). At the same time, in rural areas, unpaid work accounted for a significantly larger share of time, exceeding the level recorded in cities by 6.8 percentage points (24.2% compared to 17.4%).
Age plays a role in shaping the structure of daily time use. Young people aged 10–18 show a specific distribution of time between studying and household chores, while participation in adult and social life remains at a relatively low level.
Young people aged 15–24 devote an average of 2.2 hours a day to studying and spend an average of 11.8 hours a day on personal care.
For obvious reasons, people aged 65 and older have the most free time (an average of 5.5 hours a day). They are followed by young people aged 15–24, who spend about 4.8 hours a day on leisure activities, according to the statistics.
