You are right, but that should be taken with a grain of salt.
Most preindustrial work was agricultural, and therefore heavily tied to the seasonal cycles of the year. While your comment is factually correct, it conveys the wrong image to the listener. The first thing modern people with white collar lifestyles will think when they hear "average 6 hrs per day" is some sort of utopia where they go to their jobs one hour later and leave one hour earlier.
The experience of those preindustrial laborers would have been closer to being employed in a sweatshop, working 70+hrs per week for 5 months; then being unemployed for the rest of the year. During those lean times, they would split their time between small DIY home improvement projects, unpaid civic duty activities, maybe working small one-off jigs for wealthier neighbours, drinking cheap ale, and in general worring about running out of food before the sweatshops open up again next year.
I am not saying life was easy, but rather, there was no intrinsic reason to bump lifestyle into 70+ hrs sweatshop year round.
My take from "economic transformation" in Czechoslovakia is - if someone promises you to "tighten your belt" now because you will be much better off tomorrow, run! It's bait and switch and the other part is not coming. The same applies to "austerity" in Europe today.
Most preindustrial work was agricultural, and therefore heavily tied to the seasonal cycles of the year. While your comment is factually correct, it conveys the wrong image to the listener. The first thing modern people with white collar lifestyles will think when they hear "average 6 hrs per day" is some sort of utopia where they go to their jobs one hour later and leave one hour earlier.
The experience of those preindustrial laborers would have been closer to being employed in a sweatshop, working 70+hrs per week for 5 months; then being unemployed for the rest of the year. During those lean times, they would split their time between small DIY home improvement projects, unpaid civic duty activities, maybe working small one-off jigs for wealthier neighbours, drinking cheap ale, and in general worring about running out of food before the sweatshops open up again next year.