People talk a lot about &#x27;&#x27;quality of life&#x27;&#x27; but not so much about &#x27;&#x27;quality of job&#x27;&#x27; or &#x27;&#x27;quality of work life&#x27;&#x27;.  I used to have a job I hated and couldn&#x27;t wait to retire (early).  Now I have a job I love and hope to keep doing it forever, or as long as I&#x27;m competent at least.  The difference isn&#x27;t the amount of work but has rather more to do with autonomy, flexibility of hours, smart co-workers and low stress.  Not sure if that scales across the workforce.  Maybe some people are only productive in medium to high stress environments where there are constant external pressures to perform?<p>One downside I can see is that if retirement ages are extended and old folks work longer, then opportunities for young folks to enter the workforce will be delayed and overall unemployment may increase.