Why do so many U.S. workers feel guilty about taking hard-earned vacation?

By Karen Tan, Assistant Professor of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Middle Tennessee State University

“My dedication was questioned.”

“Managers or upper management have looked down upon taking time off.”

“People think that maybe you’re not as invested in the job, that you’re shirking your duties or something.”

These are just a few of the responses to questions I asked during a study I conducted on vacation guilt among American workers.

More than 88 percent 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.

Some of the people we interviewed had pushed through their hesitation and taken their vacation as planned. Yet all of these employees believed that they’d been penalized for taking time off and that it led to poor performance reviews, despite the fact that their paid vacation days had been a clearly articulated, earned benefit.

The US is an outlier

The U.S. is the only advanced economy that doesn’t legally mandate a minimum number of vacation days. On top of that, only a handful of states require workers to be compensated for their unused vacation days.

Meanwhile, the law in other advanced economies entitles employees to a minimum amount of annual paid leave. The EU, for example, mandates at least 20 days per year on top of paid public holidays, such as Christmas and New Year’s Day, with a number of EU member countries requiring more than 20 days of paid vacation for full-time employees.

Even in Japan, which is notorious for its workaholic culture, employees are entitled to a minimum of 10 days of paid leave every year.

Throughout much of the U.S., whether paid vacation time is offered at all depends on an employer’s generosity, while many employees face a “use-it-or-lose-it” situation, meaning unused vacation days don’t roll over from one year to the next.

Of course, not all workers experience vacation guilt. Nonetheless, the guilt that so many workers do feel may be symbolic of broader issues: an unhealthy workplace culture, a toxic boss or a weak social safety net.

For paid time off to serve its purpose, I think employers need to provide more than vacation days. They also need to have a supportive culture that readily encourages employees to use this benefit without having to worry about repercussions.