Income Inequality and Subjective Well-Being: Toward an Understanding of the Relationship and Its Mechanisms

2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 1010-1044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Katic ◽  
Paul Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Outcome Measure ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Perceived Fairness ◽  
Rigorous Analysis ◽  
Country Characteristics ◽  
Nested Structure ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
The Relationship

Income inequality is emerging as the socioeconomic topic of our era. Yet there is no clear conclusion as to how income inequality affects the most comprehensive human outcome measure, subjective well-being (SWB). This study provides an explanation for the relationship between income inequality and SWB, by delving into its mechanisms, including egalitarian preferences, perceived fairness, social comparison concerns, as well as perceived social mobility. In a rigorous analysis using a large cross-country dataset, and accounting for the nested structure of the data, as well as controlling for a variety of individual and country characteristics, we find that SWB is higher where income inequality is higher. Importantly, we also find support for this relationship being moderated by perceptions of poverty being caused by unfairness, an individual’s relative socioeconomic standing, as well as beliefs about hard work leading to success. Our study highlights the dire need for further scholarly attention to income inequality and its complex effects on SWB.

scholarly journals Inequality and Social Rank: Income Increases Buy More Life Satisfaction in More Equal Countries

2020 ◽  
pp. 014616722092385
Author(s):  
Edika G. Quispe-Torreblanca ◽  
Gordon D. A. Brown ◽  
Christopher J. Boyce ◽  
Alex M. Wood ◽  
Jan-Emmanuel De Neve
Keyword(s):  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Social Rank ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Income Distributions ◽  
Equal Income ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Positive Effect

How do income and income inequality combine to influence subjective well-being? We examined the relation between income and life satisfaction in different societies, and found large effects of income inequality within a society on the relationship between individuals’ incomes and their life satisfaction. The income–satisfaction gradient is steeper in countries with more equal income distributions, such that the positive effect of a 10% increase in income on life satisfaction is more than twice as large in a country with low income inequality as it is in a country with high income inequality. These findings are predicted by an income rank hypothesis according to which life satisfaction is derived from social rank. A fixed increment in income confers a greater increment in social position in a more equal society. Income inequality may influence people’s preferences, such that in unequal countries people’s life satisfaction is determined more strongly by their income.

scholarly journals Absolute Income, Income Inequality and the Subjective Well-Being of Migrant Workers in China: Toward an Understanding of the Relationship and Its Psychological Mechanisms

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (14) ◽  
pp. 2597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaizhi Yu ◽  
Yun Zhang ◽  
Hong Zou ◽  
Chenchen Wang
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Western China ◽  
Large Set ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Perceived Fairness ◽  
Survey Question

No study has been conducted linking Chinese migrants’ subjective well-being (SWB) with urban inequality. This paper presents the effects of income and inequality on their SWB using a total of 128,000 answers to a survey question about “happiness”. We find evidence for a satiation point above which higher income is no longer associated with greater well-being. Income inequality is detrimental to well-being. Migrants report lower SWB levels where income inequality is higher, even after controlling for personal income, a large set of individual characteristics, and province dummies. We also find striking differences across socio-economic and geographic groups. The positive effect of income is more pronounced for rural and western migrants, and is shown to be significantly correlated with the poor’s SWB but not for the well-being of more affluent respondents. Interestingly, high-income earners are more hurt by income inequality than low-income respondents. Moreover, compared with migrants in other regions, those in less developed Western China are found to be more averse to income inequality. Our results are quite robust to different specifications. We provide novel explanations for these findings by delving into psychological channels, including egalitarian preferences, social comparison concerns, expectations, perceived fairness concerns and perceived social mobility.

Organizational Justice enhances Subjective Well-being

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ms. Anjali Sahai ◽  
Prof. (Dr). Abha Singh
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Justice ◽  
Satisfaction With Life ◽  
Interactional Justice ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Adverse Outcomes ◽  
Satisfaction With Life Scale ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Negative Experience ◽  
Life Scale ◽  
The Relationship

Organizational Justice has the potential to create major impact on organizations and employees alike. These include greater commitment, trust, enhanced job performance, more citizenship behaviors and less number of conflicts. It has been reported that employees seem to have a universal concern for Justice that transcends the self and that many are subject to biases at various point of time in their work life. Sometimes these biases lead to adverse outcomes including decreased level of subjective well-being. Subjective well-being is a broad category that includes life satisfaction, positive affect, and low negative affect, such as anger, sadness and fear. Thus to study the relationship between Organizational justice and subjective well-being, a sample of 88 employees working in Private Universities of NCR region were examined. For this purpose, the Organizational Justice scales consisting of Measure of Procedural & Interactional Justice and Distributive Justice Index scale by Moorman, Blakely & Niehoff (1998) and Subjective Wellbeing Scales inclusive of the Satisfaction with Life Scale(SWLS),Scale of Positive and Negative Experience(SPANE) and Flourishing Scale (FS) by Ed Diener (2004)were used. Results indicate significant relationship between the three types of Organizational justice and subjective well-being of employees.

Multi-dimensional Individual Work Performance: Predictors and Mediators

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rostiana Rostiana ◽  
Daniel Lie
Keyword(s):  
Work Engagement ◽  
Organizational Support ◽  
Work Performance ◽  
Psychological Empowerment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Individual Work ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
Perceived Organisational Support ◽  
The Relationship

Objective - Individual work performance (IWP) has been researched time and time again in the past few decades. Interestingly enough, existing research on IWP focuses mainly on the area of work production and lacks an in-depth holistic understanding of IWP and other interrelated work behaviours. In this study, IWP is explored in the context of a multidimensional construct that includes the dimensions of task, contextual, and counterproductive behaviours. The purpose of this research is to investigate whether the three variables of work engagement (WE), psychological empowerment (PE), and subjective well-being (SWB) mediate and correlate with the relationship between perceived organisational support (POS) and IWP. Methodology/Technique - 780 employees from 4 organisations in Jakarta were selected to participate in this study. The respondents were tasked with responding to five questionnaires including (1) IWP of Koopmans, (2) POS of Eisenberger, (3) SWB of Diener, (4) WE of Baker and Schaufeli, (5) PE of Spreitzer. The data was analysed using structural equation modelling. Findings - The results show that the proposed structural model aligns with the empirical data [X2 (0, N = 780) = 0, p = 1.000; RMSEA=.000]. This research concludes that the relationship between POS and IWP is best mediated by either WE, PE or SWB. Among the three mediators, WE plays the greatest role in mediating the relationship between POS and IWP. Novelty - These findings expand on previous research on the weak relationship between POS and IWP. Type of Paper - Empirical. Keywords: Individual Work Performance; Perceived Organizational Support; Psychological Empowerment; Subjective Well-being; Work Engagement. JEL Classification: L20, L25, L29.

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