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NancyLebovitz comments on Politics Discussion Thread September 2012 - Less Wrong
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From what I've heard, people are willing to work very long hours if they get time and a half for overtime. Caveat: I'm not sure how much of this is that they have to take the work as a condition of keeping their jobs. (American?) unions seem to be at least as likely to push for time and a half for overtime as they are to push for shorter work weeks.
On the other hand, Europeans aren't exactly revolting to get longer, better paid work weeks.
Maybe there's no "human nature" on this question?
My claim is not that workers want longer work-weeks per se. It is that they are willing to work hard to maintain their relative status. The primary domain of status-seeking may certainly shift, from work to academic competition or social/sexual competition or conspicuous altruism.
Status-seeking is the main urge, but in the aggregate people are relatively indifferent about what domain it takes place in.
One thing to check would be how much people sleep in countries that have legal requirements for relatively short work weeks.
But correlation is still not causation. Maybe people sleep more if they have more free time to fill without health implications.