Perceptions of inequality through social comparisons and transference on subjective wellbeing: a micro perspective on reference groups

通过社会比较和主观幸福感转移对不平等的看法：参考群体的微观视角

• 批准号: 398022667
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Gertrud Buchenrieder, Ph.D.
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Leibniz-Institut für Agrarentwicklung in Transformationsökonomien (IAMO)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2017-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/398022667?language=en
• 关键词: Perceptions; inequality; through; social; comparisons

Social comparisons within reference groups determine subjective wellbeing. A person has a perception of inequality when comparing his/her living conditions with those of others. Social comparisons with reference persons instead of abstract collectivities form the basis of inequality measures. They are also the direct link between inequality and subjective wellbeing. However, despite the importance assigned to the relative concept of social comparison by means of reference groups, at present there is little evidence regarding the delineation of the exact reference group of people in empirical socio-economic research. Formerly, research only used the inferior concept of reference categories (comparing to abstract collectivities) instead of reference groups (requiring personal interactions with group members). The empirical delineation of an individual reference group is theoretically and methodologically challenging and is one of the main reasons why so far less potent concepts such as the reference category was used. Therefore, we propose outlining a framework and developing a survey instrument which methodologically accurately defines individual reference groups. A multi-disciplinary social science perspective is proposed for the development of the instrument. An empirically proven instrument from the area of social network research, the so-called name generator, will be adapted for our purpose. The name generator will then be used to create individualized reference groups, which will be assessed against standard reference categories by employing regression analysis relating to subjective wellbeing. Moreover, perceived inequality measures derived from individualized reference groups will be tested against objective measures of inequality and other perception-based measures of inequality to better explain subjective wellbeing. To analyze the complexity of factors influencing subjective wellbeing, panel data will be collected and analyzed using individual-specific effects within regression analysis to control for time-invariant unobserved characteristics. However, a fixed-effects specification does not allow observed time-invariant regressors (such as gender) to be incorporated into the estimating equation. Therefore, a random-effects specification will also be used. As the latter model imposes stronger assumptions which are often not fulfilled, both the fixed- and random-effects models will be covered in a comparative manner. We suggest Thailand as the case study for the empirical part of the research. Inequality is highly relevant, but under-researched, in emerging and developing economies. Thailand is an emerging economy plagued by severe forms of inequality, which are aggravated by structural transformation. Furthermore, Thai society is highly collectivistic. Everything is mediated through the eyes of one's peers. Thus, Thailand is ideal for investigating the composition of individual reference groups within the inequality-wellbeing nexus.

参考群体内的社会比较决定主观幸福感。当一个人将自己的生活条件与其他人的生活条件进行比较时，他/她会产生不平等的感觉。与参照人而不是抽象的集体进行社会比较，是不平等衡量的基础。它们也是不平等与主观幸福感之间的直接联系。然而，尽管通过参照群体对社会比较的相对概念给予了重要性，但目前在实证社会经济研究中几乎没有证据表明确切的参照群体的划分。以前，研究只使用参考类别的低级概念（与抽象的集体相比），而不是参考群体（需要与群体成员的个人互动）。从经验上划分一个参照群体在理论上和方法上都是具有挑战性的，这也是迄今为止使用参照类别等效力较低的概念的主要原因之一。因此，我们建议概述一个框架，并制定一个调查工具，方法准确地定义个别参考群体。多学科的社会科学的角度提出的工具的发展。一个经验证明的工具，从社会网络研究领域，所谓的名字生成器，将适应我们的目的。然后，将使用名称生成器创建个性化的参考组，通过采用与主观幸福感相关的回归分析，根据标准参考类别对这些参考组进行评估。此外，将根据客观的不平等衡量标准和其他基于感知的不平等衡量标准，对来自个别参照群体的感知不平等衡量标准进行测试，以更好地解释主观幸福感。为了分析影响主观幸福感的因素的复杂性，将收集面板数据，并使用回归分析中的个体特异性效应进行分析，以控制时不变的未观察到的特征。然而，固定效应规范不允许将观察到的时不变回归变量（如性别）纳入估计方程。因此，还将使用随机效应质量标准。由于后一种模型强加了往往无法实现的更强有力的假设，因此将以比较的方式涵盖固定效应和随机效应模型。我们建议泰国作为案例研究的实证研究的一部分。在新兴经济体和发展中经济体，不平等问题具有高度相关性，但研究不足。泰国是一个受到严重不平等形式困扰的新兴经济体，而结构转型又加剧了这种不平等。此外，泰国社会是高度集体主义的。一切都是通过一个人的同龄人的眼睛调解。因此，泰国是调查不平等与福祉关系中各个参照群体组成情况的理想之地。