HBR had an article about this not long ago exploring the "why" (based on several studies on the topic): http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/05/why_men_work_so_many_ho

HBR had an article about this not long ago exploring the "why" (based on several studies on the topic): http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/05/why_men_work_so_many_hours.html http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/05/why_men_work_so_many_hours.h... The takeaway: 'Not only is work devotion a "class act" - a way of enacting class status--it's also a certain way of being a "real" man. Working long hours is seen as a "heroic activity," noted Cynthia Fuchs Epstein and her co-authors in their 1999 study of lawyers. Marianne Cooper's study of engineers in Silicon Valley closely observes how working long hours turns pencil pushing or computer keyboarding into a manly test of physical endurance. "There's a kind of machismo culture that you don't sleep," one father told her. "Successful enactment of this masculinity," Cooper concludes, "involves displaying one's exhaustion, physically and verbally, in order to convey the depth of one's commitment, stamina, and virility."' The above shows that in many cases Long Hours Are Not About Working, but about signaling dedication and toughness (maybe Robert Hanson could write a post about this one.) With that said: as someone who has worked many, many of those long weeks (and still does so on occasion) I do see some truth in there, but it's of course more nuanced. I've seen people work long hours because other things in their lives are going wrong (and they were escaping it), because of management pressure (this was in the lull between the previous boom and the current one), or simply because it was "crunch/launch time" (for real - which is a completely valid reason for a long week.)