I could be bothered to read the piece, as its at The Economist and I stopped being able to read their drivel years ago. But even the conclusions quoted in the OP are nonsensical:
“There are a number of explanations. One has to do with what economists
call the “substitution effect”. Higher wages make leisure more
expensive: if people take time off they give up more money. Since the
1980s the salaries of those at the top have risen strongly, while those
below the median have stagnated or fallen. Thus rising inequality
encourages the rich to work more and the poor to work less.”
First of all, high wage earners get paid when they take time off, so there is no trade-off for them. And the final hilarity shows, once again, the disconnect between how the poor actually live and how they are portrayed by the capitalist classes. The poor don’t choose to work less because they earn less, they’re forced to work more (if they can find the hours of course). But of course, in this brave neoliberal world we are all “rational economic agents” that choose to work less when we earn less because that is the rational response when weighing the cost-benefit of the “value” of the hourly wage versus an hour of leisure time.
