Schools are closed, summer holidays are here, and also this blog is having its well-deserved summer break. Like many of you, authors of Evidence in Focus are leaving their desks to travel in Europe and beyond.

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However, without wanting to spoil your holidays, this may be a good time to recall that 39 per cent of Europeans cannot afford paying for one week annual holiday away from home.

This is a form of deprivation that is taken into account in the calculation of the EU's indicator of the risk of poverty and social exclusion (AROPE) which counts people who face

1. monetary poverty (discussed already in several blog posts e.g. comparing the situation of young and old Europeans and looking at parental employment and child poverty), and/or
2. low work intensity, and/or
3. severe material deprivation.

The last one is an absolute measure of living standards that complements the measure of relative monetary poverty (people with disposable income below 60 % of the country's median income). The EU severe material deprivation rate is currently defined as the share of the population living in households that cannot afford at least four out of nine items. 8.9 per cent of the EU population were in this situation in 2014.

One week annual holiday away from home is one of these nine items. Other items are for example the capacity to face unexpected financial expenses, to afford a washing machine or a car, and the ability to avoid arrears in mortgage or rent payments. The most prevalent forms of deprivation concern holidays and the capacity to cope with unexpected expenses.

Across countries, there is a huge variation in the share of people who cannot afford holidays away from home (see chart). In the Nordic countries, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Austria, fewer than 20 per cent of the population are deprived of an annual holiday in 2014, while in Hungary, Croatia and Romania this concerns more than 60 per cent.

Not surprisingly, people who are at risk of monetary poverty are also most likely to be deprived of holidays away from home: 70 per cent of them cannot afford holidays. But even among those who are not poor in monetary terms, a third is deprived of holidays away from home.

However, the situation is improving in many countries. Since 2008, the share of people not affording holidays away from home has decreased in 15 EU Member States: especially in Poland (11 pp.), Malta (10 pp.), Portugal (9 pp.), Austria (9 pp.), and Bulgaria (9 pp.). Furthermore, after an initial increase in the share from 2008 to 2010 in the Baltic countries, the share has since then fallen in Lithuania by 20, in Latvia by 18 and in Estonia by 16 percentage points. This development can be considered a real improvement in living conditions of these people, but it still leaves us many to be worried about.

After the holidays… Evidence in Focus will be back in September. We wish you a great summer!

Author: M. Vaalavuo is a socio-economic analyst in the unit of Thematic Analysis of DG EMPL

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.

Editor's note: this article is part of a regular series called "Evidence in focus", which will put the spotlight on key findings from past and on-going research at DG EMPL.