Artikel

Education as a Positional Good? Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel

People care about their relative standing in society and therefore compare themselves to relevant others. Empirical findings suggest that there are concerns for relative standing for different goods and life domains such as income, cars, attractiveness, and supervisor's praise. Even education has been mentioned as having a (partially) positional character. However, there has been only small consideration of education as a positional good in the empirical literature so far. Based on the literature on positional concerns and the role of education on relative position, I use German panel data to investigate the relationship between education and life satisfaction beyond the effect education might have through other variables such as income, health, or occupational prestige. Additionally, I consider the possibility that the consumption of education is subject to positional concerns. I discover a positive relationship between education and life satisfaction, indicating that education has a consumption component. Moreover, the relationship depends on the distribution of particular levels of education, suggesting that education has a positional character.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Journal: Social Indicators Research ; ISSN: 1573-0921 ; Volume: 155 ; Year: 2021 ; Issue: 2 ; Pages: 745-767 ; Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands

Klassifikation
Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie, Anthropologie
Analysis of Education
General Welfare; Well-Being
Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
Thema
Education
Positional good
Subjective well-being
Germany

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Durst, Alessa K.
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Springer Netherlands
(wo)
Dordrecht
(wann)
2021

DOI
doi:10.1007/s11205-021-02619-5
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:41 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Artikel

Beteiligte

  • Durst, Alessa K.
  • Springer Netherlands

Entstanden

  • 2021

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