Subjective Inequity Aversion: How Perceived Unfair Inequality Affects Subjective Well-being

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The more unfair people perceive incomes to be, the lower their happiness and life satisfaction. This holds not only for their own income but also for the incomes of others at the top. These are the central findings of a new study by Sandra Bohmann and Fabian Kalleitner (LMU Munich), published open access in the Journal of Happiness Studies. To explain this pattern, the authors develop a model of subjective inequity aversion: individuals compare incomes to their own fairness ideals — discomfort arises when incomes are perceived to deviate from them.

Drawing on data from the European Social Survey 2018 covering 28 countries, the study shows how substantial this association is: perceiving one's own income as one point more unfair on the survey's 9-point fairness scale corresponds to a loss in well-being roughly equivalent to a three-decile lower position in the income distribution, even when accounting for respondents' relative income position and the objective level of inequality in their country. The association is particularly pronounced for incomes perceived as unfairly too low. While perceived unfairness of top incomes is likewise linked to lower well-being, perceived unfairness of bottom incomes shows no substantive relationship. The findings hold across numerous robustness checks and could partly be confirmed longitudinally using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), which only measures unfairness of own incomes, however.

The authors conclude that injustice for oneself hurts more than injustice for others. The findings reinforce theoretical insights that earning an income provides more than its material value. Future research could examine the consequences of perceived inequity beyond well-being, for instance, its association with political attitudes.

The article is available open access: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-026-01053-z