That's not so much an effect of years of hard work as it is that as you get older your capacity for hard work declines. Also we already have government pensions. So why should a company have to provide them? The economic effect of this is that workers have to wait years for some of their pay instead of getting it right now.
As programmers or office based workforce, the worst hazards might be carpal tunnel syndrome, bad back from bad posture and maybe an upset stomach from a bad coffee.
I have known plenty of young guys in the UK who went on these fly in fly out jobs on gas or oil platforms in Australia, as it's a relatively uncomplicated way to get a well paid job (the only good thing about it) due to easy access to Australia, being commonwealth etc.
Some of them turned into literal cripples within 2-3 years, others half cripples requiring re education or placement in a less physically demanding job.
It's not the same doing this once for a weekend and then classify it as "not so hard" and go out there, work in 100 deg heat or sub freezing temperatures every day, rain, wind etc.
It grinds down a body slowly.
> That's not so much an effect of years of hard work as it is that as you get older your capacity for hard work declines
Sure, if you're a programmer this might be true, but for most of physical jobs out in the world, the physicality of the job is literally tearing down peoples bodies one way or another.
> Also we already have government pensions
Yeah, so not "A job should trade work for cash and no more" but "A job should trade work for cash + pension" as pension is a social benefit.
> The economic effect of this is that workers have to wait years for some of their pay instead of getting it right now
No, the economic effect of this is that workers get paid for their work now, and the effect of that work in the future.
