Sleepiest Nation: South Africans Sleep for 9 Hours a Day… Highest in the World

South Africa is topping the charts in a very unwelcome poll… the sleepiest nation in the world.

According to a global time use research by Our World in Data, South Africans lead the world in the number of minutes spent with their eyes shut everyday. They average 553 minutes, which is slightly over 9 hours.

This is a very revealing statistic, owing to the country’s high unemployment. It could be interpreted to mean that South Africans are either very lazy, or with so few jobs, they simply have nothing to keep them awake and busy.

On the other end of the scale, South Africans spend the least time in the world shopping – just 9 minutes a day.

The survey conducted annually among 34 countries seeks to find out how different countries divide their time among sleep, paid work, unpaid work (like household chores), personal care, leisure etc.

In terms of productivity, the average South African produces $16.89 worth of productivity per hour. This is lower thatn most countries, but higher than Brazil, China, India and Cambodia.

Switzerland leads the productivity scale at $69.26/h.

This is how the average South African spends 24 hours of their day.

* 553 minutes (9.3 hours or 38.7% of the day) sleeping
* 189 minutes (3.15 hours or 13% of the day) working
* 132 minutes (2.2 hours or 9.1% of the day) watching tv or listening to the radio
* 130 minutes (2.1 hours or 8.7% of the day) doing housework
* 82 minutes (1.3 hours or 5.4% of the day) seeing friends
* 82 minutes (1.3 hours or 5.4% of the day) partaking in other leisure activities
* 72 minutes (1.2 hours or 5% of the day) eating and drinking
* 70 minutes (1.1 hours or 4.5% of the day) on personal care
* 41 minutes (2.8% of the day) volunteering or doing unpaid work
* 39 minutes (2.7% of the day) educating themselves
* 18 minutes (1.25% of the day) caring for household members
* 9 minutes (0.62% of the day) shopping
* 5 minutes (0.34% of the day) attending events
* 5 minutes (0.34% of the day) doing sport