My claim is not that workers want longer work-weeks per se. It is that they are willing to work hard to maintain their relative status. The primary domain of status-seeking may certainly shift, from work to academic competition or social/​sexual competition or conspicuous altruism.
Status-seeking is the main urge, but in the aggregate people are relatively indifferent about what domain it takes place in.
My claim is not that workers want longer work-weeks per se. It is that they are willing to work hard to maintain their relative status. The primary domain of status-seeking may certainly shift, from work to academic competition or social/​sexual competition or conspicuous altruism.
Status-seeking is the main urge, but in the aggregate people are relatively indifferent about what domain it takes place in.
One thing to check would be how much people sleep in countries that have legal requirements for relatively short work weeks.
But correlation is still not causation. Maybe people sleep more if they have more free time to fill without health implications.