소득 불평등과 행복 불평등 간의 역설적 관계에 대한 연구

The Paradoxical Relationship between Income Inequality and Happiness Inequality

The issues on the inequality of income have been very well-documented in the economic literature. Previous literature has shown that individual income has a significant effect on the level of happiness of individuals. If this is the case, it can be expected that a gradual increase in income inequality may have a close relationship with increasing inequality of individual happiness. A recent study by Becchetti, Massari & Naticchioni (2011) suggested that the inequality of happiness has been influenced by a number of socio-economic characteristics such as education, income, and job type. Interestingly, they also showed that there has been no relationship between unequal distribution of income and happiness inequality. The main purpose of this study is to examine whether an increase in income inequality has any impact on the distribution of individual happiness using data from the 2012 KGSS. This study also tries to analyze the effect of changing income distribution on the distribution of individual happiness, by nvestigating how individual’s happiness can be changed in the following three different scenarios: 1. winner-take-all scenario; 2. equal distribution Scenario; and 3. polarization scenario; The main finding is there is different relationship between income and happiness inequality by three different scenario.