SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF FASHION CONSCIOUSNESS OF CONSUMERS

Fashion conscious people allocate a large part of their budget on a latest fashion. The present study assessed the socio-economic and psychological factors that play significant role in fashion consciousness. A convenient sample of 200 individuals (men=100 and women=100) of age between 22 and 44 years from Multan, Pakistan was taken to study the correlates of fashion consciousness. The estimates of ordinary least square showed that education, monthly income, materialism, and media exposure had significant positive impact, and price consciousness had significant negative impact on fashion consciousness of the sample, which partially support consumption theories (e.g., Absolute Income Hypothesis’ and ‘Relative Income Hypothesis). The study has implications for both consumers and producers. Key Words: Fashion consciousness, materialism, price consciousness, absolute income hypothesis, relative income hypothesis

The Impact of China’s Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy on the Income Gap between Herder Households? A Case Study from a Typical Pilot Area

China’s policy of subsidies and rewards for grassland ecological protection (PSRGEP) aims to maintain the ecological function of grasslands and increase the income of herder households. Since 2011, the Chinese government has invested more than 150 billion yuan in this policy, making it currently the largest grassland ecological compensation project in China. Based on a survey of 203 herder households in Xin Barag Left Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, this study used the Lorenz curve and Gini index to describe the imbalance in the distribution of compensation funds. Then, the integrated livelihood capital scores before compensation were used as a baseline. The changes in ranking and standard deviation of the scores after receiving compensation funds were analysed to draw a conclusion about the impact on the income gap between herder households. Finally, we described the absolute income gap through a group comparison. The results show that the distribution of compensation funds is unbalanced (Gini index is 0.46). According to the order of compensation funds from high to low, the top 20% of sample herder households received 49% of the total funds. Given the unbalanced distribution, households with better family economic conditions received more compensation funds. After receiving the compensation funds, the change in the ranking of the household’s livelihood capital integrated score was small, but the standard deviation increased from 0.1697 to 0.1734, and the Gini index of the households’ capital integrated scores decreased from 0.35 to 0.34 (the coefficient of variation decreased from 0.66 to 0.63). The group with the highest integrated livelihood capital score received 3.6 times the compensation funds of the group with the lowest score. As a result, under the promotion of PSRGEP, the local absolute income gap has widened, but the relative income gap has reduced. This study evaluated the current distribution of compensation funds for PSRGEP, which could provide a scientific basis for managers to optimize the fund distribution in the future.

The Long Arm of Prospective Childhood Income for Mature Adult Health in the U.S.

Pioneering scholarship links retrospective childhood conditions to mature adult health. We distinctively provide critical evidence with prospective state-of-the-art measures of parent income observed multiple times during childhood in the 1970s-1990s. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we analyze six health outcomes (self-rated health, heart attack, stroke, life-threatening chronic conditions, non-life-threatening chronic conditions, and psychological distress) among 40-65 year olds (N=3,813-3,944). Parent relative income rank has statistically and substantively significant relationships with five of six outcomes. The relationships with heart attack, stroke and life threatening chronic conditions are particularly strong. Parent income rank performs slightly better than alternative prospective and retrospective measures. At the same time, we provide novel validation on which retrospective measures (i.e. father’s education) perform almost as well as prospective measures. Further, we inform several perennial debates about how relative versus absolute income and other measures of socio-economic status and social class influence health.

Economic freedom improves income mobility: evidence from Canadian provinces, 1982–2018

Economic freedom is robustly associated with income growth, but does this association extend to the poorest in a society? In this paper, we employ Canada's longitudinal cohorts of income mobility between 1982 and 2018 to answer this question. We find that economic freedom, as measured by the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of North America (EFNA) index, is positively associated with multiple measures of income mobility for people in the lowest income deciles, including (a) absolute income gain; (b) the percentage of people with rising income; and (c) average decile mobility. For the overall population, economic freedom has weaker effects.

Cannot keep up with the Joneses: how relative deprivation pushes internal migration in Austria

PurposeUsing aggregated data at the municipality level allows the authors to assess the role of relative deprivation (RD) – a measure of income inequality – on top of absolute income in shaping internal migration in Austria.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the authors analyse the effect of regional income inequality on emigration rates of Austrian municipalities using a unique spatial dataset that is constructed based on Austrian administrative register data. The register-based data contain information on the municipality of residence of all individuals aged 16 and over that have their main residency in Austria, as well as their income and socio-demographic characteristics.FindingsThe authors find that increases in relative deprivation in a municipality are related to higher emigration from the municipality. Allowing for heterogeneous effects across income, education and age groups reveals that the effect is stronger among those with comparably low levels of income and among low-skilled and young individuals.Originality/valueThe unique spatially disaggregated perspective is based on novel data from Austrian administrative registers, which comprehensively capture the economic situation and geographic movements of the whole Austrian population. Most importantly, this approach allows for measuring income inequality within local communities and for a direct identification of social groups that are more sensitive to inequality.

How Income Influences Health: Decomposition Based on Absolute Income and Relative Income Effects

Previous research has confirmed a positive association between income and health, but there are still a lot of inconsistencies on how income affects health. Indeed, this impact is caused by overlaying of absolute income and relative income effects, and only by decomposing and comparing their relative importance within an integrated framework can suggestions be made for health inequalities and health intervention. To deal with this issue, using the panel data from the 2011, 2014, and 2017 waves of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), a well-designed research model is established to decompose and explore the impact. Our results indicate that relative income, rather than absolute income, has a significant negative impact on health performance, and that these associations may be causal in nature. The health inequity persists throughout the life cycle, but it remains relatively stable, without significant expansion or convergence. To some extent, the research-proposed models enrich the related literature on associations between income and health, and the empirical results suggest that as China moves to the stage of higher incomes and accelerated aging, the Chinese government should pay more attention to income inequality and be alert to the risks of “income-healthy poverty” traps.

The beneficial impact of mother’s work on children’s absolute income mobility, Southern Sweden (1947-2015)

This paper examines the influence of mothers’ employment on children’s economic mobility in a period when women’s labor market participation was still increasing, and it was still was far from common for a mother to be in paid work. It focuses on a period of transition for women’s labor market participation in Sweden, when mothers faced higher barriers to employment.The findings show that intergenerational income associations indicate that the mother’s income did not influence her children directly, in line with the results of most studies on this topic. Nevertheless, I also found that these traditional measures of income mobility failed to capture the important effects of maternal paid labor on children’s income mobility.By using extremely rich longitudinal data from Southern Sweden, I studied the trends in children’s absolute upward mobility (i.e., earning more than their fathers). I found that whether a mother was in paid work, was economically independent, and had an income similar to that of the father – which is a proxy for economic autonomy – during the late childhood and adolescence of her children had substantial effects on her children’s upward economic mobility, and especially on that of her daughters.

Income, Relative Deprivation and the Self-Rated Health of Older People in Urban and Rural China

Background: Substantial evidence indicated that absolute income is directly associated with health. Few studies have, however, examined if relative income may be equally associated with health. This study aimed to investigate the association between absolute income/relative deprivation (RD) and self-rated health (SRH). We also investigated whether the urban-rural difference was existing in these associations.Methods: Using cross-sectional data of 7,070 participants in the Shandong Family Health Service Survey of older people, this study applied binary logistic model and semi-parametric model to estimate the effect of absolute income and relative deprivation on SRH of older people. The Kakwani Index was used as a measure of relative deprivation at the individual level.Results: Absolute income has a significant positive effect on the SRH among both urban and rural older people. When considered RD as a variable, both absolute income and RD have negative significant effects on SRH among all older people. In addition, the negative effect of RD on rural elderly is more pronounced than that of urban older populations. Semi-parametric regression results show that there was a complex non-linear relationship between income and SRH. Psychological distress substantially attenuated the association between relative deprivation and SRH.Conclusions: Relative deprivation is negatively associated with self-rated health in both urban and rural older people after controlling the absolute income. RD may partly explain the association between income inequality and worse health status. Compared with the urban elderly, the effect of income-based relative deprivation on SRH was more pronounced among the rural elderly, and more care should be given to the lower income and rural older populations.