Status Claims and Status Attainment: The Determinants of Financial Well-Being

This paper examines the dimensionality of status measures related to net worth and occupation. The measures of status considered include: home equity, savings, real estate assets, business assets, earnings, and pension coverage. We consider the role of each in status evaluations and examine empirically whether the process of attainment of each is the same. We reject this hypothesis and present a final model that allows a different process of attainment for each measure. We find that, net of earnings, family formation measures have large effects on the different status measures consistent with different patterns of family needs. Finally, we discuss the implications of using wealth and consumption measures as measures of status.