The long work weeks continue because apparently we are willing to trade less time at work for more stuff. If you want to live a 1960s lifestyle with a 60s size house, 60s level health care, 1 car per family, only 60s era gadgets, and cooking the vast majority of your meals--you could easily do it on 20 hours a week for most jobs.
As an experiment to illustrate my point, look around the room you're in and count the things that you own that didn't exist in 1960.
The long work weeks continue because apparently we are willing to trade less time at work for more stuff. If you want to live a 1960s lifestyle with a 60s size house, 60s level health care, 1 car per family, only 60s era gadgets, and cooking the vast majority of your meals--you could easily do it on 20 hours a week for most jobs.
As an experiment to illustrate my point, look around the room you're in and count the things that you own that didn't exist in 1960.