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Americans continue to lead the world when it comes to prioritizing work over vacation: 53% don\u2019t plan on using all of their time off this year, despite receiving fewer days off\u2014just 12, annually\u2014than any country surveyed in a recent report by Expedia<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n And it may be starting to take a toll. The number of Americans feeling deprived of vacation time is at an 11-year high of 65%, according to the survey. The next highest reading\u201464%\u2014was in 2021, during the height of pandemic lockdowns.<\/p>\n But even if more Americans are starting to lament days in the office that could have been spent on the beach, somehow they\u2019re not as upset about it as the French are.\u00a0Despite taking nearly a month off from work on average, more than any other country in the survey, 69% of French workers reported feeling \u201cvacation deprived.\u201d<\/p>\n Christie Hudson, head of public relations for Expedia<\/a> in the U.S., told Fortune<\/em> that Americans tend to view vacations like a \u201cguilty pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhereas the average French worker \u2026 I think the reason why they still claim to be vacation deprived is because they feel like vacation is a basic right,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Expedia\u2019s survey found 93% of French people said that time off was a fundamental right, and 94% said it was essential to overall health and well being\u2014compared to 83% and 86% of Americans, respectively.<\/p>\n Fewer Americans are buying into workaholic U.S. culture<\/strong><\/p>\n Even after\u00a0covid upended traditional work settings\u2014and made lots of employees rethink their work-life balance\u2014U.S. bosses have stubbornly clung to their hopes of returning to a pre-pandemic workplace. In 2023, more than 60% of CEOs said they believed the U.S. would return to the office full time, according to a KPMG report<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Americans\u2019 not-so-healthy relationship with their jobs has begun to shift, even if the cultural norms around work have not: 37% of millennials have taken time off without telling their supervisor, according to another recent report<\/a>, and people are pulling borderline silly tricks out of their sleeves\u2014like periodically moving their keyboard mouse to stay online\u2014to keep up the charade.<\/p>\n Expedia research from 2022 also showed more people taking advantage of flexible working arrangements, according to Hudson. More workers were going on \u201cworkations,\u201d performing their jobs remotely while traveling.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile that flexibility is great, it wasn\u2019t healthy, in the end,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople were finding it even harder, actually, to draw lines between being on and off the clock. It was kind of blurring the lines of being able to be unplugged completely.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, people in Japan on average took only one more day off a year than Americans, but reported the lowest levels of vacation deprivation in the world\u201453%. In addition, rest and relaxation were top priorities for 84% of Japanese respondents, who were also more likely to take short, monthly weekend trips that didn\u2019t eat into PTO.<\/p>\n The politics of work in France<\/strong><\/p>\n France on the other hand, has long embodied the more leisurely European attitudes toward holidays and work, and debates around protecting the country\u2019s liberal work values have been a focal point of French politics over the last few years.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2023, France experienced a wave of protests, strikes and even riots in response to President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s plan<\/a> to raise the minimum age of retirement for pension benefits from 62 to 64. <\/p>\n As the country prepares for snap parliamentary elections at the end of this month<\/a>, left-wing parties have formed a new coalition called the \u201cNew Populist Front,\u201d which is campaigning on lowering the minimum retirement age to as low as 60.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nSubscribe to the Fortune Next to Lead newsletter to get weekly strategies on how to make it to the corner office. Sign up for free<\/a>.<\/div>\n