“More than 88% of full-time, private sector workers in the U.S. receive paid time off. This benefit is ostensibly in place to improve employee morale and well-being.

Yet a 2024 Pew Research Center survey found that nearly half of American workers don’t take all the vacation days they’ve been allotted. And many of them feel as if they’re discouraged from using their time off. Ironically, what’s supposed to be a source of relaxation and restoration morphs into a stressor: As vacations approach, feelings of doubt and guilt creep in.

I’m from Singapore. Upon moving to the U.S. in 2016, I was surprised at how pervasive vacation guilt appeared to be.

Compared with many of the other countries where I’ve lived or worked, American culture seems to prioritize mental health and wellness. I assumed these attitudes extended to the American workplace.

Surprisingly, though, I noticed that many of my American friends felt guilty about taking time off that they’d earned. So as a scholar of tourism and hospitality, I wanted to understand how and why this happened.

Vacation guilt

To carry out the study, I collaborated with tourism scholar Robert Li. We interviewed 15 workers who had experienced feelings of guilt over taking time off. We also administered an online survey to 860 full-time employees who received paid time off from their employers.

We wanted to know whether employees felt less respected or believed that their bosses and colleagues saw them in a worse light for taking time off. Maybe they feared being seen as slackers or, worse, replaceable.

We found that 1 in 5 respondents to our survey experienced vacation guilt, and these concerns made them think twice about following through with their vacation plans. For those who eventually did take a vacation, they often tried to ease their guilt by going for fewer days. They might also apologize for taking a vacation or avoid talking about their vacation plans at work.”

For the full story, visit PBS here.