Will the pandemic make the United States more of a vacation nation?
Americans are not known to take a lot of vacations. But after more than a year of lockdown and exhaustion in the pandemic, the prospect of stepping out of the home now to the office / school / daycare can be especially appealing this summer. Some tourism and labor experts are wondering if Americans could finally change their minds about the value of taking time off. But the forces that have made us a nation without vacations run deep. Nicole Wong has just returned from a long-awaited real vacation with her husband and 4-year-old son. Last summer, because her family couldnt travel, she created a Hawaiian-themed stay in the backyard of her San Jose, California home. They would cook Hawaiian food, do hula dancing, and snorkel (in the hot tub, of course). But this summer, with both parents vaccinated, they were able to travel far from home to Monterey Bay. We stayed in a hotel and enjoyed delicious food in restaurants prepared by other people, and explored new areas and relaxed in a large swimming pool, Wong said. Oh my God, it was a lot more rejuvenating than I thought it would be.  Wong was pretty ready to jump into the pool after last year, but her employer sweetened the deal. She is a training manager for business services company PwC, which offers employees a cash incentive of $ 250 for each week of vacation they take, up to four weeks. Workers racked up so much extra vacation during the pandemic that the company is literally paying them to use it. This is how difficult it can be to get Americans to take a break. Over the past 35 or 40 years, weve developed a kind of cultural ethic whereby devotion to work is also devotion to self, said Jamie McCallum, sociologist at Middlebury College and author of Worked Over: How Round -the- Clockwork kills the American dream. McCallum said that before the pandemic, more than half of workers in the United States had not used all of their paid time off, losing more than 700 million days a year. The long hours, over-engagement and loyalty somehow trump everything else, he said. And therefore, asking for time off is considered a non-cultural thing.   Not to mention that nearly a quarter of workers in the United States do not enjoy paid time off, according to an analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Its very different when its just part of normal working life, people get paid time off, said Eileen Appelbaum, CEPR co-director. The European Union, for example, imposes at least four weeks of vacation, and many member countries go beyond that. The United States is the only wealthy country that doesnt guarantee paid time off, so even when workers get it, people think its a gift from their employer, Appelbaum said. And you dont want to abuse it.  American workers also have economic incentives to value work over play, said Dora Gicheva, an economist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Because salaries vary so dramatically in the United States, there is a greater perceived payoff for working hard to move up the career ladder. So its that kind of crazy racing story where everyone around you doesnt take vacations and work long hours, she said. And so youre going to do it too, because with the promotion comes a big pay rise.  The pandemic has deepened economic inequalities and left some workers more precarious than ever. But it also helped bolster workers social benefits, like paid sick leave and family leave. And sociologist McCallum said it has profoundly changed the way Americans view work and life. The ability to experience a different kind of work-life balance or another kind of role for home and family might replace some of that love of work.   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