Socio-Economic Status, Comparisons of Subjective Affectedness and Life Satisfaction During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany

This paper examines the role of social comparisons in evaluating the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany between 2020 and 2022. Our approach drew on previous research concerning economic inequalities and reference groups, engaging with the broader literature on comparisons and subjective well-being. We hypothesized that individuals’ evaluations of their personal economic affectedness—what we term “subjective affectedness”—would be influenced not only by objective factors such as employment and income changes but also by their socioeconomic status at the onset of the pandemic. We primarily investigated how individuals evaluate their subjective affectedness in relation to others and how these evaluations varied according to their initial socioeconomic status. Additionally, we analyzed whether these comparisons influenced subjective well-being, specifically life satisfaction, during the pandemic. Our results show that individuals generally viewed themselves as economically less affected than others, including their immediate social circle, other people in Germany, and especially others in the EU. However, lower-status groups perceived both themselves and others as more affected and were more likely to assess themselves as more affected than others—even in the absence of objective factors such as job or income loss. Our findings suggest that individuals rely on personal reference groups, which leads to biased evaluations of others. Those who evaluated themselves as more affected than others also reported lower life satisfaction. Overall, our findings indicate that socioeconomic status played a crucial role in shaping evaluations and social comparisons during the pandemic.