Visual: Paid Vacation by Country
Here’s another map showing the extracted data from Wikipedia’s List of Statutory Minimum Employment Leave by Country, in other words minimum, law-required paid vacation days by country.
The US is the only country, on the list, with no paid vacation minimum. This interesting, although dated, report calls the US a “No-Vacation Nation“. I doubt this is a coincidence considering the US’s position on paid parental leave. But, why is this? Why does every other “developed” country provide paid vacation by law, and not the US?
Well, enjoy a glimpse of the minimum paid vacation leave by country.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find a lot of statistics for African nations. I’ll dig a bit deeper. Please leave a comment if you have any relevant information or see any errors in the data.
Note: These are absolute law-required minimums and do not account for national holidays.
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certainly is an eye-opener for US. Oh well, i have always been used to hard work. I would not know what to do with "unearned" vacation days after all of my years of working-I am surprised at the countries that have such a good program in place. I do know for me, i would work in a company for so many years that i usually got weeks off that were paid by the employer. You do not get to start with a company as a rule with paid vacation days until either you had been there six months to a year…and then you only would get a week off paid and it would graduate the more years you worked-usually with a maximum of three weeks. Depends on company you worked for in US…
Because the US have so many rich people, or at least many so rich people, they pay for their own holidays and well, and who cares about the rest… Not the rich or the politicians. In the Swedish society there is a political history of social democracy, everyone is supposed to be equal and get equal rights and opportunities. In the US they get around this by giving all normal-income people the same and "equal" lousy deal. In the US they don't tax extremely rich people so much (?), they would probably have to in order to afford vacation, parental leave.
Hey Tony!
Thanks for your comment.
I'm not so sure that all of those rich people pay for their own holidays. I would subscribe to the idea that a fair percentage of those rich people are workaholics.
"Who cares about the rest?". Well most people, in earnest, care for themselves first and foremost. Who cares about public welfare? Well, not many. Those with illnesses in the family care about healthcare, those with minimum wage jobs care for legislative minimum benefits, those with children care about parental leave, child welfare benefits, and education, etc..
I would assert that there are such a lack of public welfare that everyone is completely absorbed in attempting to improve their own situation, leaving no margins for addressing public welfare.
The bottom line: If we are going to improve the quality of life for the majority, we ALL have to pay more taxes.
I find it ironic that a democracy built on majority interest has not accepted this.
Hello… I agree with your points, no matter how thin you make a pancace it always has two sides. I'm just a bit cynical sometimes. But I doubt that voluntary charities no matter how noble and generous the rich may be will ever give you paid vacation or parental leave. Perhaps someone ought to figure out what it would cost, get a creative idea about how to finance it and send a letter to Obama. He would have liked parental leave, I'm sure of it.