Subjective Well-Being and Relative Deprivation : An Empirical Link

Arbeitspapier

This paper explores the relationship between two well-established concepts of measuring individual well-being: the concept of happiness, i.e. self-reported level of satisfaction with income and life, and relative deprivation/satisfaction, i.e. the gaps between the individual's income and the incomes of all individuals richer/poorer than him. Operationalizing both concepts using micro panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we provide empirical evidence for subjective well-being depending more on relative satisfaction than on absolute levels of income. This finding holds even after controlling for other influential factors in a multivariate setting.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 1351

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement ; General Welfare; Well-Being
• Subject: relative deprivation ; satisfaction ; subjective well-being ; SOEP ; Lebensqualität ; Einkommensverteilung ; Schätzung ; Deutschland

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): D'Ambrosio, Conchita ; Frick, Joachim R.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2004

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/20622
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET