We are substantially reducing the number of hours we work as a society. Most of the reduction has come as an increase in retirement length (because we're living longer), but some of it has come because people are entering the workforce later (due to post-secondary schooling). Since 2007 there has also been a massive increase in the number of working age people who have dropped out of the work force.
If you live longer but you retire at the same age or more, there is no reduction of work. It's just longer retirement but nothing even close to "substantially reducing the number of hours we work".
I'm not sure I follow? I get that it would be preferable to reduce the number of hours per day worked, but a drop in total hours as a fraction of a lifetime is still a good accomplishment so long as some of that extra time is healthy time.
Don't mix absolute hours of work with the ratio of hours of work relative to hours of retirement. The parent comment tried to argue that the former is decreasing because the latter is decreasing which is false. You point that the latter is decreasing and say "at least somenthing is decreasing, yay" but that is not relevant for what I and the parent comment argues about.
According to the Social Security Administration, life expectancy at 65 in 1940 was another 12.7 years for the average man. In 1990 it was 15.3.[1]
This makes me skeptical of arguments that boil down to "but retirement is longer" - sure, but not by a whole lot. Women got a little bit better of a bump - five years.
Additionally, life expectancy is correlated with wealth, and life expectancy trends in the US are not positive among all groups.
I'm not sure I get your logic. During the last 50-100 years: the population was continuously growing, the percent of employed population was continuously growing (women entered workforce like never before), the retirement age was always growing together with life expectancy. Do you really think all that growth is negated by "some percent of population entered workforce ~4 years later" and "some percent of people got fired since 2007" ?
edit: I no longer bet you are an employer.
