1963- 1974. Immigrated to U.S. lived with family: father worked a unionized job; mother was housewife. On a full-time, unionized job, father came home and put his feet up every day, while able to 1) buy a house 2) put two kids through college 3) retire with pension, social security, and medical coverage. We're talking about a white-collar unionized worker here. That's all. He had a college degree, but he didn't need it for his job: Teamsters billing clerk.
There was also a lot of work that he didn't need to do because it was built in into the way society worked. Free after-school programs (never needed to pay for after-school care of any kind), complete medical insurance (no copays, no endless forms, no work shopping for best provider); pensions (no work guessing about what stock plan to use, no anxiety about whether there would be any money from the investments); basically free college education (backed by scholarships and cheap, cheap loans and financial aid); accessible education (reasonable public schools -- no need to stress over which private schools to go to, no need to spend 1200.00 on SAT prep classes, etc.)
Fast-forward to 1983 through present.
I am now making a six figure salary on the bleeding edge of hi tech. I am a single head of family. I would get a little more leisure if I had a wife but I don't. No pension. No free medical care: everything requires a co-pay and endless amounts of paperwok and struggles (struggle=work). A 401K plan that maybe will translate into something to live on when I retire, or maybe not. I have no clue. (Stress = work.) Public education not really something to count on, so a lot of work there, figuring out which are the good schools and how to get my kids into them. Lots of work volunteering at the school to make sure that things are taken care of, that kids have lab supplies, that they are safe crossing the street. Refuse to buy into the meritocracy bullshit so I'm not aiming my kids at Harvard, but if I were, that would be more work. Social security? Who knows. When I was in school, there used to school buses; now there are none. Lots of driving. Driving = work.
No house. When they were affordable I didn't have a down; now I do, but refuse to spend 1/2 my income on a mortgage. You're telling me that things are getting better and people are working less, but my father's life seems like a socialist fantasy compared to mine.
Joanna