If you are already planning your summer holidays, spare a thought for the one in eight Flemings, who can’t afford a single week of holidays this year and if you look at the global figures for Belgium, the Flemings are the lucky ones.
Just over 21% or one in five Belgians can’t afford a week’s holiday away from home this year. Among people in Brussels this figure surges to 36% or over one in three and that is only slightly worse than the situation in Wallonia, where the figure is 31.5%.
The figures only include people who specifically indicate that the reason they are not taking a holiday is because they simply can’t afford to.
Clearly, some groups of people are far worse off than others. The unemployed (46.5%), the low skilled (40.4%), renters (46%) and single parents (44.7%) face the greatest struggle to afford a week’s holiday away from home. The figures in brackets indicate how many people in these groups can’t afford it.
The figures come from the annual survey into income and living conditions conducted by the statistics agency Statbel every year.
Henk Van Hootegem of poverty organisation Steunpunt Armoedebestrijding says being unable to afford a week’s holiday points to exclusion from society at large.