Objective and subjective income adequacy: Their relationship to perceived life quality measures

Abstract

The study investigated the extent to which income adequacy was related to satisfaction with perceived overall life quality and two of the more economically based domains of life quality: satisfaction with family income and satisfaction with level of consumption. A representative national sample of 1046 adults was interviewed. Findings indicated that as income adequacy increased, whether objectively or subjectively measured, satisfaction with each of the three life quality measures also increased. Income adequacy explained more of the variance in the two economically based domains than in the more global area of overal life quality. Thus income adequacy was a contributor to life quality, but other domains of life experience were also important. Subjective adequacy explained more of the variation in each of the three life quality measures than did objective adequacy. While respondents differed significantly in the congruency in their subjective and objective adequacy levels, that difference explained very little of the variation in satisfaction with the three life quality measures.