It’s Labor Day, at last, the symbolic end of summer. For those of us who are lucky enough to be retired, the extra day scarcely signifies anything apart from the fact that the post office is closed. But for millions of working Americans, it represents a precious break, a three-day weekend, a little extra time for themselves and their families.
A very little extra time. It’s a source of astonishment to Europeans that Americans take so little time off work. The average employee gets a miserly eight days’ vacation after a year on the job, and 19 days after three years — if they’re lucky. One in ten companies gives no paid vacation at all, and in some states, it’s as low as one out of five. Even working hours are longer. The old convention of “nine to five” has informally stretched to “eight to five” or even “eight to six.” Much of Western Europe now enforces a thirty-five-hour week, and workers retire earlier. If the statistics are to be believed, Americans work longer hours than any other nation on earth.
Why are our vacations so short? The Germans enjoy 30 days of paid leisure time each year, and the self-indulgent French have five weeks. The Italians have six weeks. What’s more, Europeans actually take their vacations. They leave work, and leave town, and don’t come back until the last possible minute. Here, many people don’t even take the short vacations they are entitled to. On the other hand, Congress members are happy to take 35 weeks a year for fun and fundraising. We continue to pay congressional salaries during these relaxing breaks, so it’s not surprising that so many people want the job
President William Howard Taft proposed in 1910 that all American workers should be entitled to a two-to-three-month vacation. In 1939, the Department of Labor also recommended mandatory paid vacations for everybody. It never happened, and in fact, vacations have been getting shorter since 1945.
One possible explanation of American work habits is that we love our work so much that we can’t bear to be away from it. The statistics on job satisfaction do not support this. Another traditional answer, proposed by the sociologist Max Weber in 1904, is that America inherited a “Protestant work ethic.” Hard work is pleasing to God, and idleness is next to sin – a belief that Benjamin Franklin incarnated back in the 18th century. But it’s hard to believe that this historic Protestant impulse still motivates American workers of all faiths and none today.
Most working families would welcome a long restorative break each summer; of course, they would, in theory. But we should be careful what we wish for. Family vacations are never easy; in fact, they are much harder than work. When you consider the stress, the travel, the weeks of family fun, the expense, and the disruption of all your routines that a long vacation involves, you might prefer to settle for three days in the Hamptons. Europeans often return from their long breaks in a state of collapse. If we had just enjoyed such a two-month vacation, it might have been a pleasure to go back to work today.
