WHAT? Does that count sick days as well, or is that a myth?
Here in Germany, I get 30 vacation days per calendar year, plus any sick days, and thats fairly normal.
Edit: Sure the absolute salaries here are lower, but the cost of living is vastly different and the social support structures and healthcare are different, too. That should definitely be kept in mind.
I dont need to drive my car a lot, because my city is fully walkable/bikeable, and thats not a super rare thing here. There are a lot of factors.
I feel vacation days are just a basic requirement for happiness, whereas being rich maybe isnt
Not only that, they are a requirement to make a good worker, that consequently make a good company. If you burn out your employees you fall behind schedule pretty quickly, so you have to rely on high turnover, which isn't a great option either.
Take the example of Japan
With a new law taking effect in April 2019 requiring employees who are due 10 days or more of paid vacation to take at least five days off per year
Working too much can have tremendous social consequences
Japan has long had a reputation for being one of the most overworked countries in the world. The term karoshi, or death by overwork, emerged in the 1990s when an increasing number of Japanese professionals were dying from heart attacks and strokes. Recent years have seen an epidemic of suicide, in part because of work-related stress: of 30,000 suicides in 2011, 10,000 were believed to be related to overwork, according to the police.
Burn out in Europe is still omnipresent and rising these days. This includes Germany, the 'chosen child' every proponent points at in these discussions. A few weeks off barely makes a dent in this and vacation days / time off hasn't been that noticeably different since the 70s/80s.
>Japan
That's just a law that pushes them to use it and keeps companies from going 'ah yeah difficult'. It's barely anything when work culture chains employees down to the whims of employers, or risking to be seen as dysfunctional for trying to get out of that 'I belong to my company' trap.
Surprise, that's the same culture that exists in most EU-countries. Just less hardcore.