Absolute Wealth, Relative Deprivation and Relative Satisfaction as Determinants of Depressive Symptoms: Evidence From Mexico

Adopting Fehr and Schmidt’s (1999) framework of ‘self-centred inequality’, we study absolute achievement, relative deprivation and relative satisfaction as predictors of depressive symptoms. Our empirical analysis is based on the 2012 Mexican Demographic and Health Survey, which is nationally representative and covers 43,912 individuals. We find that each of those variables is a significant predictor for the intensity of depressive symptoms, with a positive coefficient for relative deprivation and negative coefficients for absolute wealth and relative satisfaction. In addition, we show that the inclusion of interaction terms enables a better understanding of the role of demographic variables such as gender and age, which have received particular attention in the medical literature.