Does She Earn More than Me?

Are you happy with your salary? Well, you may say yes. But, what if we ask you if you are happy with how much your colleague is earning? Most of us will nod with dissapointment. Our happiness at workplace is directly linked to a better pay cheque than of our friends cum colleagues, says a new study.

The research conducted by Professor Eduardo Perez Asenjo of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Oficina de Informacion Cientifica showed that our salary is not the only factor that affects our happiness, but our colleague’s salary does too. For a happy and satisfying professional life, our salary should not be any less than what our peers get, the study found.

[Read:Unusual Ways to be Happy]

Our job performance is also affected by the difference between the zeroes in our and our colleagues’ salaries. In his research, Asenjo also found that if we are getting lesser salary, we might end up working for more hours. This might be due to winning a hand over our colleagues in social comparison. But Asenjo stresses on the idea that it might be due to the thinking that ‘if I work hard, I will start earning as much as or more than my colleagues’.

This clearly indicates negative effect of others’ earnings on our happiness.

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