Working fewer hours in a better world

I’m not a parent, but something we always hear in regards to parenting is that parents want their kids to do better than they did.  So if Generation 1 is able to pay for a house, car, whatever else by working 40 hours a week, wouldn’t they want Generation 2 to be able to do all of that by working only 35 hours a week?  They would have five additional hours a week to spend with their families.  Wouldn’t that count as being better?

But then, wouldn’t Generation 2 want Generation 3 to do all of that by working only 30 hours a week?  Eventually, shouldn’t there be a Generation that can have a house, and car, and whatever without having to work?  Before you start screaming “socialist fantasy,” or whatever, I’m using “work” to mean doing something you really don’t want to do for money, from flipping burgers to sitting in a cubical all day entering billing information.  If your heart is really set on building handcrafted furniture or writing sonnets, I’m not calling that work.  But those things don’t always pay that well.

How many people now hate their work?  Why should that still be a thing in a better world?  If the “Better World” we see for future generations looks a lot like the world we have now, it just means we lack imagination.