[scarmig]

I wonder what a plausible model for productivity by hours work is, and whether it varies by occupation.

Especially for piecemeal labor, after getting to the point where you maintain your baseline level of skill (say, 10 hours/week?), it seems like each marginal hour will have less productivity than the previous. It probably never drops to negative, unless we're talking 80 hour weeks.

It's less clear to me that the same is true of so-called knowledge workers. Or, at least, the baseline is much higher. My bet would be that an engineer who only works 10 hours/week is going to be less productive, on an hourly basis, than one who works 20 hours/week. I'm not sure what the inflection point would be, though.

I think a better model would be having a year or two of relatively long workweeks (40 hours a week) to be followed by a year or two of vacation and education, instead of 20 hours/week consistently.

Another approach would be decreasing the retirement age. I'm less a fan of this, as too many people end up depressed and lost after they leave the workforce. Plus, it's a raw deal for people who die before they retire.

[Chinjut]

How is a lowered retirement age a raw deal for people who die before they retire?

[agf]

Not the poster nor am I endorsing this, just explaining it. Everyone who works full time would benefit from a shorter work week. Only people who live to retire benefit from a lower retirement age. So if you're considering the two policies as alternatives, then one is definitely a raw deal for people who die early. Given relatively few people die after starting to work full time but before retirement age, I don't think that's the issue with this proposal.

[Chinjut]

Ah, ok, I understand this. Yes, as an alternative to other policies to make people's lives of mandatory toil better, I see the raw deal for some of doing nothing other than lowering retirement age. (Of course, I'm a "Why not both?" guy.)