According to researchers, increasing income does not make you happier beyond a certain limit. Results from the USA now contradict this.
Philadelphia (dpa) l People with rather low earnings have so far been able to console themselves with the fact that a very large salary does not make you happier. At least that seemed to be suggested by several scientific studies. However, a study from the USA in the specialist journal “PNAS” now states that not only general life satisfaction but also daily emotional well-being continue to grow with high incomes.
The fact that money makes a contribution to perceived happiness initially seems logical, as it ultimately promises more security. As to the question of whether there is a certain threshold above which the personal feeling of happiness stagnates, the scientific answers are ambivalent and also depend on what the respective studies illuminate more precisely. In happiness research, a distinction is made between long-term life satisfaction and daily emotional well-being – such as joy, stress, sadness.
According to a study by psychologist Andrew Jebb of Purdue University in 2018, the ideal annual household income for emotional, daily well-being in the United States was between 60,000 and 75,000 US dollars (currently 50,000 to 62,000 euros). That roughly corresponds to what Nobel laureate in economics Daniel Kahneman and Princeton University economist Angus Deaton had found. They came to a value of 75,000 US dollars in 2010, beyond which well-being does not increase any further. The researchers saw the “decreasing marginal utility” as the cause: From that threshold, people are probably no longer able to do what counts most for emotional well-being, such as spending time with the family.
More control is crucial
Psychologist Matthew Killingsworth from the University of Pennsylvania contradicts this with a new study. To this end, more than 33,000 working adults in the USA were asked at random times of the day via an app: “How are you feeling right now?”. The result of the 1.7 million individual data records: Not only general life satisfaction, but also daily emotional well-being increased with growing household income and that far exceeded a sum of 80,000 US dollars. He cites one of the reasons that rich people feel they have more control over their lives. It does not indicate an upper limit.
Killingsworth sees his more differentiated methodology as the reason for the deviating results: The test subjects were questioned in real time using the smartphone, instead of reporting in retrospect in a survey. In addition, their emotions were queried on a broad scale and not just dichotomously (yes or no) – a procedure that Jan Delhey also positively emphasizes.
The happiness researcher and sociologist from the University of Magdeburg also praised the detailed income measurement of the study in an independent classification. “The overall better method could actually have led to the new result,” says Delhey. This probably means that the decreasing marginal utility will set in later than previously assumed – an assessment that study leader Killingsworth also comes to. He writes: “While there may be a point beyond which money loses its power to improve well-being, the current results suggest that this point may be higher than previously thought.”
Different societies
Delhey, however, is cautious about transferring the findings to Germany. Society in the USA is much more competitive and materialistic, and a person’s success is valued more strongly through their economic status. In addition, regardless of cultural differences, the work has focused on those in gainful employment, for whom the material basically plays a greater role.
For Delhey, economic variables are often underestimated when it comes to questions of life satisfaction: “Studies that take into account the actual standard of living as well as wealth and possessions come to a stronger influence of material factors.”
This fits in with a study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) from 2020, according to which millionaires in Germany have the greatest general life satisfaction. However, according to Delhey, it is not only important how much money you have, but also what you spend it on: “Here research shows that experiences make you happier than goods because they wear out less and are not easily devalued by comparisons can.” Likewise, it makes you happy if you spend money not only on yourself but also on others.
And he emphasizes: “Studies on the connection between money and happiness are just statistical rules of thumb.” The rich would only have a greater chance of higher life satisfaction: “In individual cases we find cross-unhappy high-income earners as well as people with lower incomes and a high level of well-being.”
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