Income Comparison and Social Location in the United States

• In Event: 4255 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 5. Income Inequality and Well-being

Abstract

A long tradition of research in the social sciences has argued that subjective assessments of social standing powerfully predict general health and well-being. For instance, recent research on the relationship between happiness and life satisfaction indicates that relative income effects on subjective well-being dominate absolute income effects. What are the social bases of such comparisons? That is, how do status orientations vary by social location? What sorts of people rate their income as "high" or "low" relative to salient alters? And how do the reference groups for such comparisons vary across the population? In this paper, we bring unique data on the U.S. to bear on these questions, presenting results from national surveys conducted in 2012 and 2016, the Social Status, Consumption, and Happiness I and II surveys.

Authors

• Arthur S. Alderson, Indiana University

• Helge Johannes Marahrens, Indiana University, Bloomington