 Job satisfaction and relative income in economic transition: Status or signal?: The case of urban ChinaWenshu Gao and Russell Smyth China Economic Review, 2010, vol. 21, issue 3, 442-455 Abstract: We use two datasets for urban China to examine whether an increase in reference group income lowers or increases job satisfaction. The former is consistent with a status effect -- an increase in the income of others lowers my satisfaction because I feel jealous. The latter is consistent with a signal effect -- an increase in the income of others might make me jealous, but it also provides an information signal about my future prospects. When we use a single item indicator of job satisfaction we find no support for a status or signal effect; however, when we use a psychometrically valid instrument to measure job satisfaction, we find some support for the existence of a status effect. We consider the components of job satisfaction through which the status effect operates. We find that the status effect operates through satisfaction with co-workers, operating procedures, pay and supervision. Keywords: Job; satisfaction; Relative; income; Urban; China (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:21:y:2010:i:3:p:442-455 Access Statistics for this article China Economic Review is currently edited by B.M. Fleisher, K. X. D. Huang, M.E. Lovely, Y. Wen, X. Zhang and X. Zhu More articles in China Economic Review from Elsevier |
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