I understand that freelancers, consultants, entrepreneurs, and similar can make high wages and set their own hours.
My personal experience has been extremely high wage jobs are full-time, with few exceptions. Extremely low wage jobs are part-time, with few exceptions.
Corporate office jobs seem unable to comprehend that someone might not work 40 or 60 or even 80 hours a week (we're a family after all!). Everyone is expected to be available from 9am to 5pm M-F always and sometimes an hour or two outside that in either direction too to accommodate people in other timezones. With the exception of the occasional temp worker, I have never seen a part-time corporate job.
Meanwhile, on the low end of the wage spectrum you get companies refusing to schedule workers for full time because they don't want to pay benefits, and wildly unpredictable schedules that vary week to week.
Personally, I make six figures and could probably survive on half that. I'd love to keep my job but with half the hours and would be willing to take half the pay. But the way meetings are sprinkled throughout the week, I can't foresee this happening, at least not at my current company. I like the stability of the salary and benefits and the predictability of the paychecks, so while I could probably work as a consultant or something the lack of stable income would wreck my financial anxiety and I'd probably end up working full time anyway.
Why don't more high paying jobs come in part time versions? And why don't more low paying jobs come in more stable, full-time versions?