Vacation—Still an Issue of Workers' Protection? An Empirical Study of Vacation and Recuperation

The aim of this study was to investigate how commonly employees take vacation or compensatory leave instead of sick leave, and how commonly they do not feel rested/recuperated following a fairly lengthy vacation. In the study group (n = 2,536), consisting of a representative sample based on Sweden's regular labor-market surveys, 14 percent of subjects had taken vacation or compensatory leave over the previous 12 months instead of taking sick leave. As many as 15 percent of subjects in the entire sample reported not being rested/recuperated when returning to work following several weeks' leave. A stepwise logistic regression prediction model was constructed to compute the probabilities of not being recuperated. Personal financial situation is a contributory factor, but there is also a strong correlation with the way work is organized.

[1]  D Eden,et al.  Effects of a respite from work on burnout: vacation relief and fade-out. , 1997, The Journal of applied psychology.

[2]  E Frank,et al.  Types of stressors that increase susceptibility to the common cold in healthy adults. , 1998, Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association.

[3]  D. Kleinbaum,et al.  Applied Regression Analysis and Other Multivariate Methods , 1978 .

[4]  D. Etzion,et al.  The impact of vacation and job stress on burnout and absenteeism , 2001, Psychology & health.

[5]  B. McEwen.  Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. , 1998, The New England journal of medicine.

[6]  G. Strauss-Blasche,et al.  Does vacation enable recuperation? Changes in well-being associated with time away from work. , 2000, Occupational medicine.

[7]  K. Matthews,et al.  Are Vacations Good for Your Health? The 9-Year Mortality Experience After the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial , 2000, Psychosomatic medicine.

[8]  Mika Kivimäki,et al.  Organisational downsizing, sickness absence, and mortality: 10-town prospective cohort study , 2004, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[9]  Gunnar Aronsson,et al.  Unwinding, recuperation, and health among compulsory school and high school teachers in Sweden , 2003 .

[10]  P. Landsbergis,et al.  The impact of lean production and related new systems of work organization on worker health. , 1999, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[11]  R. Bruce Hull,et al.  Mood as a product of leisure: causes and consequences. , 1990 .

[12]  G. Aronsson,et al.  Sick but yet at work. An empirical study of sickness presenteeism , 2000, Journal of epidemiology and community health.

[13]  L. Hallsten.  Burnout and Wornout: Concepts and Data from a National Survey , 2005 .

[14]  Annual vacation: Duration of relief from job stressors and burnout , 2003 .

[15]  D Eden,et al.  Relief from job stressors and burnout: reserve service as a respite. , 1998, The Journal of applied psychology.

[16]  L. Caldwell,et al.  Leisure: an overlooked component of health promotion. , 1988, Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique.

[17]  Hans C. Jessen,et al.  Applied Logistic Regression Analysis , 1996 .

[18]  Gunnar Aronsson,et al.  Sickness Presenteeism: Prevalence, Attendance-Pressure Factors, and an Outline of a Model for Research , 2005, Journal of occupational and environmental medicine.

[19]  M. Torem.  Burnout: From Tedium to Personal Growth , 1982 .

[20]  Gunn Johansson,et al.  Subjective wellbeing and temporal patterns of sympathetic-adrenal medullary activity , 1976, Biological Psychology.

[21]  Gunnar Aronsson.  Paid by Time but Judged by Results: An Empirical Study of Unpaid Overtime , 1999 .