Living to Work or Working to Live: How Have Workforce Decisions Changed Over Time?

When selecting a career or finding a job, there are countless factors that must be considered. One’s boss, the commute, the content of the work, and the pay are just a few of the many aspects that contribute to the decision. One factor that is becoming increasingly important to job-seekers is the idea of work-life balance. This term refers not only to how many hours a week are required for work, but also how much the job takes away from other areas of life. Working many hours in a week, long commutes, and being constantly on-call are all ways that a job may detract from one’s life outside of work. A job with a good work-life balance allows an individual the time and energy to balance other areas of their life. While changing attitudes towards work-life balance have affected the average amount of hours Americans work in a week, other factors have also played a part in affecting workforce hours, which include the increasing opportunity cost of working longer hours, the rising cost of living, and the increasingly negative connotation of the word ‘workaholic.’ Considering these factors, employees are facing decisions never before seen by the workforces of previous generations.

When examining the average workweek for Americans over time, a clear trend emerges. From April to June 1984, Americans worked 34.962 hours per week on average, excluding the farming sector, and this number declined to 32.705 hours in the July-September quarter of 2023 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024). Though this figure has only dropped by about 2.25 hours per week over the course of the last 40 years, the trend can be extrapolated to years prior to 1984, indicating that Americans would have been working about 37.25 hours per week in the 1940s. Though time-consuming, working longer hours opens up the possibility of affording luxuries such as a bigger house, a nicer car, more vacations, or private schooling for children. If working more hours opens up the possibilities for these luxuries, one may wonder, why are people working fewer hours now?  The answer lies in the opportunity cost of the time spent working. As working hours have declined by 2.1% from Q4 2021 to Q3 2023, the “amusements, gambling, and recreation” and “performing arts and spectator sports” industries are responsible for a 0.39% and 0.2% decrease, respectively (US Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024). As the products that these industries provide have improved and have gotten more expensive, the cost of working has increased. Employees have less incentive to work and more incentive to play. 

This viewpoint can be applied to other ways of spending one’s time outside of work, including video games, which have become infinitely more widespread over the past 40 years. Another effect of the technological wave over this time has been the rise of social media. While social media allows people to stay in touch across long physical distances, it can have a detrimental effect on the way in which one sees their own life. Feeling like everyone else is vacationing and never working can decrease a population’s willingness to work. While dedicating more time to personal hobbies has had a marked effect on the hours that the American population has worked, social media’s impact cannot be overlooked. Overall, there is more to do with one’s free time, disincentivizing working long hours. 

While the prospect of working fewer hours in hopes of maintaining a good work-life balance is attractive, it has its downsides. Increased leisure time comes with the cost of not being able to afford as many consumer goods, some of which are necessary to live. Vacation, day trips, meals out, and rounds of golf are all costly, while even the “cheap” hobbies, such as running, have costs associated with them in the form of running shoes or run clubs for serious runners. Additionally, prior to affording hobbies and extracurriculars, everyone must satisfy their basic needs of food and shelter, a necessity which is becoming less attainable with rising costs of living. Over the past several years, the cost of many goods has risen, which can be partially attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, supply chains across the globe crumbled, resulting in higher production costs and consequently higher prices (O’Leary 2026). This phenomenon was observed in many industries, including affecting food prices. On top of this, a marked spike in housing prices has occurred within the past few years. This spike comes from the fact that there is a low supply of houses on the market: “At its heart, the housing crisis comes down to a basic economic concept: supply and demand. There aren’t enough homes for sale to meet the number of people looking to buy in certain areas” (Byas 2025). This lack of supply has a trickle-down effect on rent prices, as rising housing prices increase the demand for apartments. This broad spike in housing prices, coupled with increased grocery prices, has inflated the opportunity cost of leisure by making consumption more expensive, and in turn making willful underemployment unrealistic. Being able to afford basic necessities or hobbies essentially requires a full-time job. 

A third factor people must consider when deciding how much they are willing to work is how others will perceive their employment situation. One reason that some may err on the side of working too little is the label, ‘workaholic,’ that comes with the long hours. Overall, the term carries a negative connotation, as evidenced by Chamorro-Premuzic, who writes: “Throughout human history, work has always been something most people did because they had to rather than wanted to” (Chamorro-Premuzic 2024). This negative connotation is enhanced by parenthood. 70 years ago, when fathers’ main job was to provide for their family, they could work all day and have minimal responsibilities when they arrived home. Currently, this is frowned upon. While fathers still have to provide for their family, it is expected that they contribute to the functioning of their home while engaging with their children. Simultaneously, the number of women entering the workforce has skyrocketed as well. Parents feel a great deal of pressure to work long hours in order to be able to afford the rising cost of living, but in the process sacrifice quality time with their families. They face costs of their leisure time and costs of their working hours, potentially leading to a feeling of being pulled in both directions. Social media exacerbates this problem:  seeing other parents taking their families on vacation on platforms such as Instagram can exacerbate the fear of spending too little time at home, and seeing others’ professional accomplishments on sites such as LinkedIn can complicate this choice of weekly hours. 

Throughout American history, adults have had to balance work with the rest of their lives. However, this choice has never been more difficult. Whether due to hobbies and interests that make leisure time more attractive but are increasingly expensive, the rising cost of living that makes unemployment an impossibility, or the social stigma of becoming a workaholic, there are numerous factors that employees must consider. Considering outside influences such as social media, finding an adequate balance can feel nearly impossible. Though figuring out one’s work-life balance is a task that comes with adulthood, it has never been more complex, and will continue to evolve.

Works Cited

Byas, Kristina. “5 Reasons behind the U.S. Housing Price Surge, Leaving Many Struggling to Buy or Rent.” Investopedia, September 11, 2025. https://www.investopedia.com/5-reasons-behind-the-us-housing-price-surge-leaving-many-struggling-to-buy-or-rent-11779332.

Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas. “What the Science Says about Being a Workaholic.” Forbes, May 13, 2024. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomaspremuzic/2024/05/13/what-the-science-says-about-being-a-workaholic/.

O’Leary, Alison. “Why Are Prices Rising? Understanding America’s Inflation Problem.” GovFacts, January 1, 2026. https://govfacts.org/money/broader-economy/economic-indicators/why-are-prices-rising-understanding-americas-inflation-problem/.

Staff, Knowledge at Wharton. “The Truth about Being a Workaholic: Why It Isn’t Always Bad for You.” Knowledge at Wharton, November 29, 2017. https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/truth-workaholics-isnt-always-bad/.

“Why Are Average Weekly Hours Worked Declining? : Beyond the Numbers.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-13/why-are-average-weekly-hours-worked-declining.htm.