Movies and TV sitcoms focus overwhelmingly on non-work life.

“Overwhelmingly” seems an exaggeration; there are all those shows set in hospitals, law firms, etc. I suppose some bias against work in TV and movies would occur just because of the division of labor you describe; a movie showing lawyers spending hours in the library or standing around in the courthouse waiting for their case to be called wouldn’t be all that exciting. I have noticed a remarkable absence of work from serious fiction. James Gould Cozzens, who never had a job except when he was in the army, wrote terrific novels about people at work, but few if any authors do that now.

Division of labor is a spectacularly efficient way to produce disagreement over value. The guy who makes the stuff willingly sells it for a lot less than it’s worth to you, because it’s worth little to him.

At home there’s no other side of the transaction.

Social isolates may wear the same clothes every day, but they rarely wear the same clothes as the do at work. Very few people (especially social isolates) wear coat and tie in their leisure time, despite it’s prevalence in the workplace. Further evidence that formal business attire is signalling comes from where it is particularly likely to be worn: job interviews, client meetings, management: all areas where signalling is especially important. Maintaining a fashionable “look” may be signalling, but so is business attire.

The same is likely true of keeping ones own schedule.

I think the better argument is that single-family homes (and to a lesser extent, apartments) dominate because of signaling, and this is a significant inefficiency. I live in a cooperative house with private rooms and shared public spaces. This definitely provides savings. Especially since shopping and cleaning is centralized. On the margin, privacy has some “real” value, but I would guess that much of its value is signalling.

This seems a fair description of University professors, especially those with tenure or on tenure track, most or all of whom could earn more in other careers.

Hypothesis: academics prefer to signal to other academics (those whom they consider their intellectual peers) over signalling to the masses by having higher income, visible consumption or conspicuous (socially verifiable) power. Their casual attire, hours, and habits are far more about sending signals than are the suit and tie and window office of the conservative businessman, though academics in their naiveté (pride? delusion?) think the exact opposite.

“Academic freedom” (in the technical sense, not in the attire and office hours sense) is meaningful for a small minority, and for most a signalling mechanism; the point is to have academic freedom, not to use it, and the greater one’s external commitment to academic freedom, the easier to obtain the social status among fellow academics associated with having an independent mind, without having to say anything against the academic grain (with the inevitable loss of social status) or original (which involves real intelligence and hard work.) Work habits and clothes are a cheap way to signal commitment to academic freedom.

At home, people choose for themselves how regimented to be. At work, that choice is made by other people, who don’t get direct benefits from giving the worker personal autonomy. Assume people do prefer autonomy, they will provide it to themselves when given the decision rights to do so.

In business settings, a regimen that can save a penny per activity might mean the difference between success and bankruptcy, because (1) the activity is done on a very large scale, so the pennies add up, and (2) competitive pressures mean that a small difference in cost or price can drive market share sharply up or down. Neither factor is true in our personal lives.

People prefer the gains in autonomy provided by following their own schedule, etc. But at work, they follow the dress code, show up when everyone else does, in order to signal commitment to the enterprise.

We might prefer to have more autonomy at work (companies list things like “flexible scheduling”, “relaxed dress code”, and “telecommuting” as benefits) but employers largely prefer to pay people more to signal commitment and competence, rather than merely due to an increase in efficiency.