How Sick Day Culture Differs Around the World

Over half (53 percent) of South Koreans do not take sick leave. At least, that's what the results of a survey of adults aged 18 to 64 carried out by Statista as part of its Consumer Insights show. This contrasts with another Asian country, China, where less than a third of respondents (29 percent) said they had not taken sick leave in the year before they were surveyed. In South Korea, however, employers are not obliged to grant their employees time off for non-work-related illnesses or injuries.

At the other end of the scale, Australian respondents mirrored a different sick day culture, with only 13 percent reporting an absence-free 12 months. It's a similar, if less pronounced, story in Finland, Germany, Swede, the UK and the U.S., where between 19 and 25 percent of respondents reported the same. In contrast to their European neighbors, almost four in ten people in France and Spain didn't take sick leave.