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Relative Deprivation and Risky Behaviors

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  • Ana I. Balsa
  • Michael T. French
  • Tracy L. Regan

Abstract

Relative deprivation has been associated with lower social and job satisfaction as well as adverse health outcomes. Using Add Health data, we examine whether a student’s relative socioeconomic status (SES) has a direct effect on substance use. We advance the existing literature by addressing selection and simultaneity bias and by focusing on a reference group likely to exert the most influence on the respondents. We find that relative deprivation is positively associated with alcohol consumption, drinking to intoxication, and smoking for adolescent males, but not for females. Alternative variable definitions and robustness checks confirm these findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Ana I. Balsa & Michael T. French & Tracy L. Regan, 2013. "Relative Deprivation and Risky Behaviors," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1304, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    • Handle: RePEc:mnt:wpaper:1304
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    Cited by:

    1. Oded Stark, 2020. "Relative deprivation as a cause of risky behaviors," The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 138-146, July.
    2. Ana Maria Takahashi, 2014. "Job-related stress in academia: the role of relative deprivation, hours worked for different tasks, and children," Discussion Papers 1424, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.
    3. Filippo Temporin, 2020. "How Does Deprivation Affect Early-Age Mortality? Patterns of Socioeconomic Determinants of Neonatal and Postneonatal Mortality in Bolivia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(5), pages 1681-1704, October.
    4. Hyll, Walter & Schneider, Lutz, 2018. "Income comparisons and attitudes towards foreigners - Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 634-655.
    5. Xi Chen, 2015. "Relative deprivation and individual well-being," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 140-140, April.
    6. Guillermo Alves & Martín Leites & Gonzalo Salas, 2022. "See it to believe it. Experimental evidence on status good consumption among the youth," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 22-12, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    7. Ana Balsa & Carlos Díaz, 2018. "Social interactions in health behaviors and conditions," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1802, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    8. Punarjit Roychowdhury, 2018. "Visible consumption, relative deprivation, and health: evidence from a developing country," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(3), pages 1366-1380.
    9. Inoue, Atsushi & Tanaka, Ryuichi, 2024. "The rank of socioeconomic status within a class and the incidence of school bullying and school absence," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    10. Lucio Esposito & Sunil Mitra Kumar & Adrián Villaseñor, 2020. "The importance of being earliest: birth order and educational outcomes along the socioeconomic ladder in Mexico," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 1069-1099, July.
    11. Kim, Jinho & Fletcher, Jason M., 2021. "The effects of relative body weight on socioemotional and schooling outcomes among female adolescents in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 289(C).
    12. Chevalier, Arnaud & Marie, Olivier, 2024. "Risky moms, risky kids? fertility and crime after the fall of the wall," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    13. Stark, Oded, 2021. "Why reducing relative deprivation but not reducing income inequality might bring down COVID-19 infections," Journal of Government and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(C).
    14. Kiwoong Park, 2021. "Does Relative Deprivation in School During Adolescence Get Under the Skin? A Causal Mediation Analysis from the Life Course Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 154(1), pages 285-312, February.
    15. Hong Zhang & Yongle Ding & Li Wei & Wenting Zhang, 2023. "Personal Relative Deprivation Reduces the Meaningfulness of Engaging in Prosocial Behavior (7,756 Words)," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 35-56, January.
    16. Lucio Esposito & Shatakshee Dhongde & Christopher Millett, 2021. "Smoking habits in Mexico: Upward and downward comparisons of economic status," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 1558-1575, August.
    17. Xiaomeng Zhang & Tianxin Wang & Zhenzhen Liu & Xiaomin Sun & Shuting Yang, 2022. "Relative Deprivation Leads to the Endorsement of “Anti-Chicken Soup” in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-11, October.
    18. Stark, Oded, 2023. "On a tendency in health economics to dwell on income inequality and underestimate social stress," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    19. Takahashi, Ana Maria, 2016. "Job stress in Japanese academia: The role of relative income, time allocation by task, and children," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 12-17.
    20. Hyll, Walter & Schneider, Lutz, 2016. "Social Comparisons and Attitudes towards Foreigners. Evidence from the ‘Fall of the Iron Curtain’," IWH Discussion Papers 12/2016, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    21. Michaela Paffenholz, 2024. "Adolescents’ Mental Health and Human Capital: The Role of Socioeconomic Rank," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_526, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    22. Jinyu Pan & Zhenzhi Yang, 2023. "Knowledge mapping of relative deprivation theory and its applicability in tourism research," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    relative deprivation; socio-economic status; risky behaviors; adolescents;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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