Open AccessWorkplace inequality is associated with status-signaling expenditure
Author(s) -
Naomi K. Muggleton,
Anna Trendl,
Lukasz Walasek,
David Leake,
John Gathergood,
Neil Stewart
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2115196119
Subject(s) - salary , inequality , demographic economics , economic inequality , rank (graph theory) , affect (linguistics) , distribution (mathematics) , economics , labour economics , psychology , mathematics , mathematical analysis , communication , combinatorics , market economy
Significance Scholars have identified that inequality is a notable detriment to well-being. Status-signaling luxury expenditure is taken as a symptom of the reduced well-being associated with income inequality. Despite evidence that status-signaling luxury expenditure is higher in unequal regions, it remains unclear who is affected by inequality. We use payroll and daily spending data from 683,677 individuals in 32,008 precisely-defined workplace peer groups to show that workers at unequal firms spend significantly more on high-status, luxury goods. This is also seen in those with a high absolute salary, but low salary rank within their workplace. Compared to aggregated, regional data, financial data allow us to identify groups of workplace peers and offer precise measurements of status-signaling expenditure for each individual.