And not in some bs "part time vs full time" but that we have enough humans on this freakin planet that you should only need to work 30 hours a week to live a healthy, balanced life.
What happens is that other humans do more hours of work per household and outbid you on things that you might otherwise want. Some people are OK with that and go on to live happy lives. Others get frustrated and join the race to keep up with the others. (Which I think is a choice that people should have; I would strongly oppose taking that choice away, but the end result is that lots of people are working lots of hours to buy lots of things.)
IMO it's simply that money is a better motivator than equality. Money is tangible with easy to understand value, while equality is intangible and dubious in value, according to some.
Once you realize you can beat the guy working 20 hours a week by working 40 hours a week, you quickly find yourself optimizing for productivity over anything else. The rest of us get swept up in the current of the people that want it the most.
https://www.kiplinger.com/real-estate/602609/cheapest-small-...
Is there anything you would die for?
Is there anything you fear worse than death?
While it's not necessary that everyone works, some work is necessary. If people stopped showing up to the farms, or the water treatment plants, everyone would die. So, someone has to work.
Labeling "we need work" as only a social fact is a misguided kind of relativism. "Society has created arbitrary weights and values on which work gets rewards, therefore we only need work if we believe we need it". The logic is just plain faulty.