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A comment on Fix Things, Never Force It: Lessons From Grandpa. Parent comment

Re:Fix Things, Never Force It: Lessons From Grandpa by grecy on Friday June 14, 2013 @05:44PM (#5882700)
Not so long ago, one member of a family would work a 35 hour week, while the other would stay at home, doing chores or looking after the kids. Money was not abundant, but time was, so people would often repair their own stuff out of necessity.

These days it's common for both members of a family work 50 or 60 or 70 hours a week, making them extremely time-poor. With such limited free time, they choose not to spend it getting their hands dirty doing manual labor, and instead just pay to have it done.

(For the record, I'm 31 and thoroughly enjoy doing as much stuff myself as I possibly can. Last week I put a new alternator, starter and rear brake shoes in my older car for about 1/10th the price I was quoted, and it took me about 3 hours on a sunny Thursday evening after work. I can't wait to once again take a long hiatus from work so I'm not as time-poor as I am now)

EDIT: for anyone that wants to work on their own car, checkout the prices on http://rockauto.com - it's insanely cheap and they ship worldwide. I have no affiliation, other than being a satisfied customer.

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Re:Fix Things, Never Force It: Lessons From Grandpa by rgbrenner on Friday June 14, 2013 @06:35PM (#5882906)
Here's a chart of average hours worked per employed person in the US from 1970 to 2011: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USAAHWEP

Please point to the part of the graph that backs up your claim that people in the past worked substantially fewer hours, and that people today work substantially more.

Don't forget to divide the numbers by 52 for the weekly number of hours worked.

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Re:Fix Things, Never Force It: Lessons From Grandpa by dthtvwls on Friday June 14, 2013 @08:13PM (#5883281)
More than possibly those numbers could be from the increased numbers of people who've had to take up part-time work who would've been otherwise unemployed.
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Re:Fix Things, Never Force It: Lessons From Grandpa by TheCowboy on Saturday June 15, 2013 @01:36AM (#5884215)
There is also the conversion to an information economy with a growth in white collar jobs that are usually salaried with hours no longer being tracked.

Most employers report a normal 40 hours per week on paper, but that is usually the minimum expected.

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