I'm guilty, too

In a blog post in the Spanish daily newspaper El País (of Madrid), there's a nice series of articles about traveling. This figure caught my attention more than most: the mean number of vacation days earned by citizens of various countries, and the number of vacation days actually taken (and, naturally, the number of unused days). My country, USA, comes in 3rd to last in the group, only ahead of work-a-holic Japan and South Korea. Even Mexico and India earn - and take - more paid vacation days than we do. I wonder why it is, that we both earn few, and take even fewer, vacation days?

I admit it, though: I'm guilty, too, of not using all of my 'precious' vacation days. Perhaps because the academic semester is so loaded, that taking vacation during the teaching term is frowned upon. Equally likely is that because the summer schedule is so flexible, that I don't feel the same need to take vacation days because I already am resting when compared with the other 3/4ths of the year. Those are probably my reasons, but I'm curious the justification of the rest of the country.