Comment by ninalanyon

Hours spent working haven't noticeably declined for people in Northern Europe for fifty years. I worked 40 hours a week in the UK in 1978, the usual working week in Norway now is 37.5 hours.

I very much doubt that most people are greatly more productive, if you can even measure that for most jobs, than they were fifty years ago. Most jobs now are office jobs and service jobs. Much of the purported gains in productivity are soaked up in increased communication effort and in shifting ever more tat.