>I recall one of my German managers said: "The difference between workers today and the previous generation is that we lived to work, while they work to live."

I know 2 Boomers who have 8 figure networths and own their own businesses(manual work, think maintenance and installing stuff). They frequently take the opportunity to self congratulate("I worked so hard for 30 years") and complain about younger people("They don't work hard at all, always on their phone during their shift").

Can't say I was surprised when I found out that back when they started their businesses these fields were basically completely unregulated, that the regulations for these areas were in part lobbied by them(and by others like them) once they got off the ground and that both were sitting on juicy government contracts because the guy in charge of the finance department of the canton was in their unit during obligatory military service. And that's just the stuff I am aware of.

The point being: Older people really did live to work, but they never mention that their marginal rewards for extra work were much greater in most areas of the economy as compared to today.