You might be talking about ONE previous generation -- perhaps TWO in some situations.
It wasn't all that long ago (late 1940s to early 1950s) that the "standard" work week was reduced to 5.5 days (Saturday was reduced to a half-day). Before that, most people worked a full six days every week.
Exactly. The Welsh worked 6 day weeks and took Sunday off. They combined access to a bible in Welsh with church activities to conduct "Sunday School" to preserve the language. Having one day off each week was the norm until union types negotiated us into a 5 day week with 8 hours as a 'norm'. The only time I ever experience this 8 hour shift world was as a high school student working in a restaurant to earn money to go to the prom.
The French socialists have cut their work week to 37 hours in the mistaken belief that a shorter work week would generate opportunities for more employees to be hired to cover all the available work hours. All it did was trash productivity.