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! Income Inequality and Status Anxiety
Marii Paskov, Klarita Gërxhani, Herman G. van de Werfhorst
! GINI Discussion Paper 90 August 2013
Income Inequality and Status Anxiety
Marii Paskov1, Klarita Gërxhani, Herman G. van de Werfhorst University of Amsterdam
Abstract. The goal of this paper is to study status anxiety, expressed in terms of status seeking, and how it relates to income inequality. We make a distinction between income groups to determine whether a quest for social status applies to all individuals equally or only particular income groups. Furthermore, we extend existing studies by focusing on both between- and within-country variability in inequality. We use repeated cross-sectional data from the European Social Survey (ESS), which was collected biannually in the period of 2002-2010. The results show that income inequality is associated with higher levels of status seeking, suggesting that people are, on average, more concerned about their position in social hierarchy in unequal contexts. A stricter test of the relationship, controlling for country fixed effects, confirms that the association holds, as an increase in inequality is associated with an increase in status concerns. Moreover, we find that status seeking increases among all income groups. Thus, both the poor and the rich feel more anxious about their status in unequal societies.
Keywords: Social status, status seeking, status anxiety, income inequality.
INTRODUCTION Social status enhancement is identified as one of the core human values. It is believed that people have a natural tendency to strive for status (Lindenberg 2001; Schwartz 1992). People are concerned with their social standing because it includes material rewards and psychological rewards such as self-respect, self-esteem or sense of one’s worth (Rawls 1972; Weber [1922] 1968). Although the pursuit of social status can be viewed as a positive motive for people to invest in their human capital and to work hard, the hunger for ever higher status is also an