Shocking figures: over half of Hungarians can't afford 1-week holiday

For many people in the European Union (EU), summer means holidays and travel. However, around a third (32.9%) of the EU population cannot afford a one-week annual holiday away from home, Eurostat reported.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, slightly more households with dependent children (34.6%) than those without (31.3%) find themselves in this situation.

You will probably not be surprised to learn that Sweden (8.2%), ahead of Luxembourg (13.1% in 2015), Denmark (13.7%), Finland (14.2%), Austria (15.4%) and the Netherlands (16.2%) were the EU Member States with the lowest percentage of people unable to afford such a one-week holiday.

At the opposite end of the scale, more than 6 in 10 people could not afford a one-week annual holiday away from home in Romania (66.6%) and Croatia (62.8%).

And so was Hungary, where over half of the population (50.7%) cannot afford themselves a one-week holiday away from home. Bulgaria (56.4%), Greece (53.6%) and Cyprus (53.5% in 2015) were also in this position.

The good news is that over the last five years, the proportion unable to afford a one-week annual holiday away from home decreased in all Member States, except Cyprus (from 47.6% in 2011 to 53.5% in 2015), Denmark (from 10.5% in 2011 to 13.7% in 2016) and Greece (from 51.2% in 2011 to 53.6% in 2016).

The most notable decrease was registered in Latvia (from 63.4% in 2011 to 37.1% in 2016, or -26.3 percentage points - pp), followed by Poland (-19.3 pp), Estonia (-18.6 pp), Bulgaria (-16.9 pp), Malta (-16.7 pp) and Hungary (-15.6 pp).

At EU level, the share of population who could not afford a one-week annual holiday away from home decreased by 5.1 percentage points between 2011 and 2016, from 38.0% to 32.9%.

• Tags:
• Eurostat,
• economy,
• holiday