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Anyone else find it crazy that it's still _only_ 38%? Just for interest, I looked up the stats for the UK, and this [1] article from 2009 gives the figure of 80

Anyone else find it crazy that it's still _only_ 38%? Just for interest, I looked up the stats for the UK, and this [1] article from 2009 gives the figure of 80%. [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3127696.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3127696.stm

philwelch 12y ago
The entire UK is the size of a small US state. You can literally just get drunk, black out, and wake up in a different country. (Citation: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509837/Teenager-went-drunken-night-Oldham-woke-PARIS.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509837/Teenager-wen...) In the US, you could travel the equivalent distance of London to Serbia and still not leave the country. That has a huge impact on passport statistics.
- jdietrich 12y ago
  That argument falls apart if you look at European countries within the Schengen area. The US is less populous and less diverse than the Schengen free travel area, but most EU countries have drastically higher rates of passport ownership than the US. The immense opportunities for passport-free travel do not seem to deter Europeans from getting a passport. I think the fundamental explanation for the disparity is that Americans are starved of vacation time, so find it much less appealing to travel internationally. The EU minimum of four weeks paid vacation is exceptionally generous by US standards; In many EU countries the average worker receives five or six weeks of paid vacation, which is almost unheard of in the US.
  - philwelch 12y ago
    The U.S. is also larger than the Schengen area. Plus, air travel from Europe is considerably cheaper than air travel from the United States, while gasoline is much cheaper in the United States. Besides, we were comparing to the UK, which is not part of the Schengen area but is right next to it. Of course Britons are going to have passports.

philwelch 12y ago

The entire UK is the size of a small US state. You can literally just get drunk, black out, and wake up in a different country. (Citation: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509837/Teenager-went-drunken-night-Oldham-woke-PARIS.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509837/Teenager-wen...) In the US, you could travel the equivalent distance of London to Serbia and still not leave the country. That has a huge impact on passport statistics.

jdietrich 12y ago
That argument falls apart if you look at European countries within the Schengen area. The US is less populous and less diverse than the Schengen free travel area, but most EU countries have drastically higher rates of passport ownership than the US. The immense opportunities for passport-free travel do not seem to deter Europeans from getting a passport. I think the fundamental explanation for the disparity is that Americans are starved of vacation time, so find it much less appealing to travel internationally. The EU minimum of four weeks paid vacation is exceptionally generous by US standards; In many EU countries the average worker receives five or six weeks of paid vacation, which is almost unheard of in the US.
- philwelch 12y ago
  The U.S. is also larger than the Schengen area. Plus, air travel from Europe is considerably cheaper than air travel from the United States, while gasoline is much cheaper in the United States. Besides, we were comparing to the UK, which is not part of the Schengen area but is right next to it. Of course Britons are going to have passports.