This is my experience too. 45 is the new 40. Going above and beyond or crunch time starts at 50. I love what I do and am blessed with the compensation so I’m not complaining. Yup, I too don’t think reduced hours works. Corporate America is greedy, there is strong global competition like never before, and people still measure their own worth by the work they accomplish. This concept is spilling into other geos. I managed employees in countries where they have laws prohibiting working more than X hours. I couldn’t get those people to stick to their hours. They would always claim that they could choose what they did in their free time. I had a family member that had a 30 hour agreement (layout design engineer). Employer would not keep realistic expectations and she would work 40 each week. While they paid her overtime, it’s not what she signed up for (medical reasons). She threatened to quit and they would adjust, hours creeped up again and threatened again, back and forth and she finally quit. I could go on and on with examples.