Comment by panick21_

This misses a huge part of the story, increase in productive, means a large economy, means more efficient use of resources, means compensation goes up over time. If you want to live the live of somebody that did 40h a week 40 years ago and only work 20h, you can already have most of that, and still have many options somebody back then didn't have that is virtually free.

The actual realization is that most people simple rather work 40h a week (or more) and spend their money on whatever they want to spend their money on.

Specially many of us here, can do so easily. I personally work 80% and could reduce it further if my goal was maximum leisure.

By far the biggest reason it doesn't feel that way, is that housing polices in most of the Western world have been utterly and completely braindead. That and the ever increasing cost of health care as people get ever older and older.