Speaking of the good old days, a Captain at a major airline would be drawing his pension with around 20 000hrs in his logbook. I'm still a good fifteen years off getting my tie cut in half and being pushed out of the crew room in a wheelchair but will crack my 20k later this year.
With current flight time limitations, sorry TARGETS, I can expect to retire in the low to mid 30k hour range with no pension.
My various employers will have extracted nearly twice as much work out of me and paid me a lot less over the course of my career.