A Canadian bedtime story

The daily rhythms of life—from sleep to work to leisure—come into focus through data from Statistics Canada’s Time Use Survey. In 2022, we asked a representative sample of Canadians to report how they spent their day over a 24-hour period, including those hours spent sleeping.

Every hour is a waking hour in Canada, with levels of “awakeness” ranging from under 10% of Canadians during the so-called witching hour from 1:00 to 5:00 a.m. to almost all Canadians (about 98%) during the dinner hour from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.

In April 2022, 323,000 people, or 1.7% of workers aged 15 to 69, usually worked a regular night shift. Workers aged 25 to 69 with a high school diploma or less were more than twice as likely to work at night than those with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Filipino (4.3%) and Black (3.3%) workers were among the most likely to work at night.

By 6:00 a.m., approximately one in four Canadians are awake; this rises to about one in two by 7:00 a.m.

By age group, well over half of adults aged 35 to 64 are awake at 7:00 a.m., while approximately three in five adults aged 15 to 34 or 65 and older are still sleeping.

By 9:00 a.m., approximately four in five Canadians are awake, with young adults aged 15 to 34 most likely to still be sleeping (over one in four).

Canadians are most active and awake from noon to 8:25 p.m., with nineteen out of twenty Canadians (about 95%) going about their daily routines.

By 9:00 p.m., approximately one in ten Canadians are sleeping.

Almost one-third of Canadians are asleep by 10:00 p.m., while three in five are asleep at 11:00 p.m. Younger adults aged 15 to 34 are most likely to still be awake at 11:00 p.m., with almost half awake at that hour.

By midnight, over four in five Canadians are asleep, with younger adults most likely to still be awake (just over one in four).

By 1:00 a.m., approximately nine in ten Canadians are asleep, with young adults most likely to still be awake.

It should come as no surprise that Canadians are more apt to sleep in on the weekend than on weekdays. Whereas just over half of Canadians are awake by 7:00 a.m. on weekdays, that threshold is not passed until 8:00 a.m. on weekends. Approximately one in four Canadians sleep in until 9:00 a.m. on the weekends.

Young adults are most likely to sleep in on the weekend, with about one in five not rising until just before 11:00 a.m.

To learn more about how Canadians spend their time, check out Time use in Canada: Interactive visualization tool.