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Does wage rank affect employees' well-being?

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Brown, G. D. A. (Gordon D. A.), Gardner, Jonathan, Oswald, Andrew J. and Qian, Jing. (2008) Does wage rank affect employees' well-being? Industrial Relations, Vol.47 (No.3). pp. 355-389. ISSN 0019-8676

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-232X.2008.00525.x

Abstract

How do workers make wage comparisons? Both an experimental study and an analysis of 16,000 British employees are reported. Satisfaction and well-being levels are shown to depend on more than simple relative pay. They depend upon the ordinal rank of an individual's wage within a comparison group. “Rank” itself thus seems to matter to human beings. Moreover, consistent with psychological theory, quits in a workplace are correlated with pay distribution skewness.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Wage differentials, Pay equity, Organizational sociology
Journal or Publication Title:	Industrial Relations
Publisher:	Blackwell Publishing
ISSN:	0019-8676
Date:	21 May 2008
Volume:	Vol.47
Number:	No.3
Page Range:	pp. 355-389
Identification Number:	10.1111/j.1468-232X.2008.00525.x
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (Great Britain) (BBSRC)
Grant number:	88/S15050 (BBSRC), R000239002 (ESRC), R000239351 (ESRC).
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URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/310