Work <i>hours</i> have been steady to slightly declining, especially factoring in higher unemployment, longer between-jobs periods, and (one good change) the increase of remote work, as people just get sick of spending 8 hours in an white-painted anxiety-box that, in many cases, has nothing to do with getting work done.<p>Work-related <i>anxiety</i> has gone way up. People work slightly shorter days (8-9 hours for white-collar workers instead of 9-10) but are a lot more drained at the end of them. In software, this is due to tightly-packed open-plan offices, increasingly unreasonable expectations regarding availability and timeframe, and declining autonomy due to the abuse of technology and processes (like "Agile", which started with great intentions).<p>The real work has gotten easier (in some cases, so much easier as to be an anxiety-causing factor in its own right, due to boredom) and hours have gone down slightly (but with more variance) but the full-time impression management job has become more competitive, much more mean-spirited, and far more draining.<p>Watch <i>Mad Men</i>. It explains so much more about white-collar culture than I could ever get into here. At the time, that was <i>the</i> most stressful, painful, and socially demanding white-collar job in the country-- which is why people doing it, by the standards of the time, were paid extremely well. Now, that's the mainstream corporate culture.