• Signs of a growing class divide in the US include the data on income inequality, “deaths of despair,” and the rising mortality rate for non-college educated white Americans.
• Has it become more true in the US that money and prestige buy happiness? Twenge and Cooper attempt to answer this question.
• The data: the General Social Survey (GSS), 1972-2016, adults age 30 and above, n≈44,000.
• “Class” here is of the socio-economic variety (SES), and is measured by income, education, and “occupational prestige”
• The GSS happiness question: ‘Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?’
• Income, education, and occupational prestige all contribute considerably to happiness – and for income, the effect does not taper off as income rises.
• The connection between SES and happiness has increased markedly between 1972 and 2016 – though some of this increase can be traced to increasing marital differences between SES classes.
• The larger happiness gap between SES groups is, for white people, caused by diminishing happiness for those in the lower classes, while the upper-class folks almost held their own in terms of happiness.
• For Black people, lower-SES people showed a small decline in happiness between 1972-2016, but high-SES people saw a significant increase in happiness.
• Has class become more salient as income inequality increases?
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