People value being paid appropriately for their work-but national surveys indicate that many working adults report a discrepancy between what they actually earn and what they think they should justly earn. This evidence provides an impetus for examining the factors that shape workers' justice perceptions of earnings. The present study elaborates on two key distributive justice principles-equity and need-that guide people's ideas about their just reward.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRes Soc Stratif Mobil
February 2021
Perceptions of unjust pay represent a central feature in research on distributive justice. Prior studies document that work-life conflict (WLC) is a strong predictor of unjustly low pay. We extend that work by asking: Did the social and economic changes associated with the coronavirus pandemic 2019 (COVID-19) modify the relationship between WLC and perceptions of unjust pay? In September 2019, we collected data from a nationally representative sample of workers to profile the quality of work and economic life.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCan Rev Sociol
November 2014
Using data from a 2011 nationally representative sample of Canadian workers (N = 5,576), the present study evaluates the social-structural determinants of the sense of mastery. Three main contributions emerge. First, we document that each of the main components of socioeconomic status--education, income, occupation, and economic hardship--have distinct total, indirect, and net associations with mastery.
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