People with higher incomes are less generous than people with lower incomes if they live in a highly unequal area or are prompted to believe that they do. Looking at data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. residents, a team of researchers led by Stéphane Côté at the Rotman School of Management found that income was negatively associated with generosity in the most unequal states (i.e., those with Gini coefficients, a widely used index of income inequality, of 0.485 or higher), but positively associated with generosity in the least unequal states. Higher inequality was associated with reduced generosity among people in the top 15% of the income distribution, while inequality was not associated with the generosity of people in the bottom 15% of the income distribution. This suggests that economic inequality modifies the relationship between income and generosity, the authors say.
Source: High economic inequality leads higher-income individuals to be less generous
