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High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

wsj.com

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Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#111

Post by lotsofpulp »

ghaff wrote: post #13
bodiekane wrote: post #5

> Since this group already put in longer hours than the typical U.S. worker—and women at the highest income levels—these high earners had longer work days to trim > Before the pandemic, Eli Albrecht, a lawyer in the Washington, D.C., area, says he worked between 80 to 90 hours a week. Now, he says he puts in 60 to 70 hours each week Key lines from the article, which give important context and invert what many people'…

Right. This isn't about four day work weeks. It's mostly about people who were working insane hours cutting back to merely long hours.

I do not believe the 80 to 90 hour work week claims. Might be at the office 80 to 90 hours, but I doubt even 60 hours of work was or is being done regularly.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#112

Post by fullshark »

tsunamifury wrote: post #25

Many men discovered over the course of the pandemic how much they actually loved spending time with their family and how unrewarding office life is. Unfortunately the powers that be have decided that this realization is incompatible with how the economy is set up to work, commuting office space work lunches and dinners etc. and so back to the office we will be forced to go.

This speaks to me, but I also wonder if part of it is the business cycle is ending so the opportunity to work hard seems less lucrative.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#114

Post by Retric »

VLM wrote: post #74

The linked article works hard to provide only meaningless personal anecdotes and promote speculation to avoid any actual answers while pushing pre-selected agendas. AKA, journalism in a nutshell. Sadly typical. Which is why almost no one reads that stuff anymore and no one takes it seriously anymore. As a member of the group in question, I find the data easy to believe. Its less than two weeks work on average. If I g…

The article was mostly quoting statistics from a linked study in the beginning, only quoting a few people to get a feel for why this may have changed. Anyway, people taking time off between jobs only applies to people who actually swapped jobs. Unless job hoppers started taking a month off it’s not going to result in these numbers:

The top-earning 10% of men in the U.S. labor market logged 77 fewer work hours in 2022, on average, than those in the same earnings group in 2019, according to a new study of federal data by the economics department at Washington University in St. Louis. That translates to 1.5 hours less time on the job each workweek, or a 3% reduction in hours.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#115

Post by lightbendover »

greatpostman wrote: post #21

Controversial opinion: Men are concluding that women don’t care about money as much as they used to, and having an amazing career to snag a great woman is no longer the best (or even a good) strategy. In some ways, being a dedicated corporate employee makes you unattractive as a person. I know a lot of guys in their late 20s that think this. And I know a lot of broke bar tenders dating great women. Unless you are mak…

> Unless you are making huge money

I don’t see how your statement becomes less true as income increases. More true if anything in my experience.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#116

Post by cuuupid »

sandworm101 wrote: post #12

Key phrase: The top-earning 10% of men in the U.S. labor market. So nowhere near the top 10% of income earners. The real top earners don't do much traditional "work", instead earning money thorough investment and/or family income streams. I would also quibble with the definition of "work", as many activities of top earners would not be considered work by the majority of people. I've been to my fair share of "conferen…

This is a myth, the 90th percentile income earner for men isn’t that high of a salary (iirc around 135k$) and most successful tech and finance careers would fall into that category.

For better or worse the passively rich now inhabit the 97th+ percentiles (probably worse if you look at the exponential increase in income above 90th)

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#117

Post by flir »

starkd wrote: post #50
chiefalchemist wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see job postings with "must be able to multitask" and "high intensity environment" and I think the 80s called and it wants its 8 ball of coke back. It's common knowledge - or should be - multitasking is a productivity loss, not gain. And the last thing the world needs is another headless-chicken culture where working hard and frantic is confused with smart and efficient. Guard your calm...no one else will.

There will always be a need for some multi-taskers. Some are better at it than others. Not everyone is the same. Office secretaries/assistants/receptionists are the heartbeat of any business.

My line manager multitasks so I don't have to.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#118

Post by aqme28 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #107
aqme28 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't have the numbers, but it may be that the majority of income in the US comes from "investment" or other passive not-earned means. I'm curious to see your numbers, because I can't imagine how this could possibly be the case. I think you may be living in a bubble. I wonder even how many of these top non-income earners get their money from inheritance rather than your examples of startups and artists.

Earnings from inheritance have almost certainly dropped as a percentage of total income. Inheritance is generational. The huge number of millionaires and billionaires created in the last thirty years haven't had time to die and leave that money to their kids. A few million inherited 40 years ago, mostly in family real estate, is now worth 100s of millions. But that new money probably hasn't yet passed to the next gen…

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/0dee8dce-en/index.html?i...

Looks like about 60% of wealth in the US is inherited, and the proportion has been climbing.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#119

Post by RobinL »

mrandish wrote: post #8

> "High-earning men in the 25-to-39 age range who could be described as “workaholics” were pulling back, often by choice" This seems like great news. I know several guys who've recently opted to earn less in exchange for more time off at home with their young kids. They are happier and the kids love it.

I had 9 months off and then went down to three days/week 3 years ago, after the birth of my first child. Definitely happier, the kids love it, and both parents are less tired so we have more quality time. Also it turned out having kids are way cheaper than I thought so long as you're happy to buy everything second hand and don't need to pay for much childcare.

One reason for the decision was I figured in 20 years looking back, I doubt I'll regret sacrificing my career (to some degree), but I can imagine I'd seriously regret missing out on the time with my kids, which you can never get back.

Before I had kids, I remember someone on a podcast saying some thing like 'I'd give anything to go back and have another day with my kids when they were young'. It had quite a big impact on me, and I still think about it often (especially when we're having a hard day!)

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#120

Post by yterdy »

lupire wrote: post #64
sillysaurusx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Height, intelligence, and a sense of humor. You can often get by with just two. Beyond a certain threshold, throwing money at women doesn't really yield more results. Or at least not the kind of results you'd want.

If you are tall, smart, and funny, but can't pull in good money, you probably aren't so smart. Unless maybe you are ugly? But then does tall still help?

Intelligence is multi-faceted. Could be witty, could be street-smart, could be emotionally intelligent. Either way, you don't need it if you have the other two (with "funny" being a euphemism for "not dull"). Height especially. I don't have a dog in that race as a gay man, but the way that "preference" bleeds into the way people treat you in the office and in social settings (and even in the classroom) is pretty frustrating. Short guys (and, to a lesser extent, women) have to be within a certain range of personalities to do well; tall guys don't have to have a personality at all.
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