The Cost of Taking a Shower Worldwide
For much of the world, a hot shower is that rare thing: a guilt-free indulgence. It feels good, it leaves you feeling good, and it’s said to be good for you.
But in other places, jumping into the shower is not such a straightforward decision. The apparatus, water, and energy needed for a warm shower make it an economic no-no. In our latest study, QS Supplies found that there are countries where showering daily for a year would eat up one-third or more of the average local’s annual income.
A daily shower is not necessary to maintain good personal hygiene (showering too often may be bad for you). But its relative inaccessibility across multiple countries is a stark reminder that billions of people are deprived of the human right “to have physical and affordable access to sanitation, in all spheres of life, that is safe, hygienic, secure, and socially and culturally acceptable.” And that a “water or sanitation service does not serve the whole community if it is too expensive,” according to the UN.
With water and energy costs soaring in Europe and elsewhere, QS Supplies has crunched the numbers to find out where taking a shower is most and least expensive worldwide — and in which countries a year of hot showers is most affordable compared to the average salary.
In the UK, around 18% of energy consumption goes on heating water, and around 68% of household water usage is from bathroom taps and shower heads, according to Waterwise. But the cost and availability of water and heating energy vary dramatically worldwide. Here are the annual costs of a daily shower for every country with available data.
The average cost across the 89 countries on our map is $260 per year. This is just short of the U.S. average of $264: $230 for electricity and $33.72 for water. This figure also gives Americans the third-best deal when compared to average national income. Perhaps that’s just as well since the daily or near-daily shower has been considered essential since the rise of “a new class of office drones working in close quarters” in the early 20th century — when advertisers of soaps took advantage by playing on workers’ fear of being smelled by the guy at the next desk. Rinse and repeat, anyone?
