Frontiers in Psychology (Sep 2015)

Income, personality, and subjective financial well-being: The role of gender in their genetic and environmental relationships

  • Michael eZyphur,
  • Wen-dong eLi,
  • Zhen eZhang,
  • Richard D Arvey,
  • Adam eBarsky

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01493
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6

Abstract

Read online

Increasing levels of financial inequality prompt questions about the relationship between income and well-being. Using a twins sample from the Survey of Midlife Development in the United States and controlling for personality as core self-evaluations, we found that men, but not women, had higher subjective financial well-being when they had higher incomes. This relationship was due to ‘unshared environmental’ factors rather than genes, suggesting that the effect of income on subjective financial well-being is driven by unique experiences among men. Further, for women and men, we found that core self-evaluations influenced income and subjective financial well-being, and that both genetic and environmental factors explained this relationship. Given the relatively small and male-specific relationship between income and subjective financial well-being, and the determination of both income and subjective financial well-being by personality, we propose that policy makers focus on malleable factors beyond merely income in order to increase subjective financial well-being, including financial education and building self-regulatory capacity.

Keywords