Vacation

The latest entry in a special project in which business and labor leaders, social scientists, technology visionaries, activists, and journalists weigh in on the most consequential changes in the workplace.

• By Dorothy Sue Cobble

Private-sector workers in the U.S. receive 10 days of paid vacation per year on average—but none of them are guaranteed.

• By Martin Hart-Landsberg

Forget the argument about a calendar built around an agrarian economy. It was urbanization that created summer as we know it—and now we can't imagine doing anything else.

• By Daniel Luzer