To start with, it’s all about understanding the trade-off between work and free time, explains University College London professor of economics Wendy Carlin. “You work to get income that you can spend on goods and services. As you become better off, we would expect people to both want more free time and more goods; the question is what the balance is between one or the other.”
Different societies make different choices; Carlin touches on the classic contrast between European and American work-life balance. “People say ‘Oh, the Europeans are just very lazy, and they take all these holidays.’ But they’re making a different choice in terms of the way they take advantage of their higher living standards, because the thing that’s really scarce is time.” Veblen’s theories come in when you look at why people work more in different countries, she explains.
“Some of those…
