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The Great Vacation Squeeze

Health and Wellness • 26m

Directed by John de Graaf • Documentary • 2014 • 27 minutes

Americans have the shortest vacations of any rich country. And they are actually getting even shorter. The US is one of only five countries in the world—the others are Burma, Nepal, Suriname and Guyana—which have no law guaranteeing any paid vacation time for workers. The average US vacation is a bit over two weeks, while the median is only about a week and a half, and American workers give back about three vacation days every year. Europeans enjoy five or six weeks of vacation each year and are healthier than Americans.

Vacations matter—for productivity, happiness, family bonding and especially, health. Men who don't regularly take vacations are a third more likely to suffer heart attacks than those who do; women are fifty percent more likely, and far more likely to suffer from depression.

Tags
affluenza, american studies, americans' short vacations, americas, anthropology and archaeology, bullfrog films, business, cultural anthropology, depression, doc, economics, ecopsychology, environment, europeans' vacation time, expository, family bonding, happiness, health, healthcare, healthcare1, heart attacks, importance of vacations, john muir, labor and economics, labor studies, medicine and nursing, no vacation law, occupational health and safety, overworked, ovid, ovid_ca, productivity, psychology and mental health, recreation and sports, rick steves, s_0034, s_0065, s_0085, s_0087, s_0090, s_0134, s_0208, s_0242, s_0263, s_0291, s_0306, s_0585, sara speck, shelton johnson, sociology, stress, the, the great vacation squeeze, title_defgh, title_g, united states, vacations, work, world regions, yosemite

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