Abstract
Recently, normative studies on distribution principles have begun to attract the attention of many sociologists. I would like to propose a sociological research program that can contribute to these normative discussions. The research program I propose aims to estimate various social influences that are a result of the application of a certain distribution principle. On the basis of this concept, this study aims to simulate a change in the aggregation of subjective well-being through the virtual redistribution of income using the 2005 Social Stratification and Social Mobility (SSM) Survey dataset. In this article, I apply the egalitarian redistribution method so as to analyze the relationship between the reduction of inequality and aggregation of subjective well-being. At first, the function of subjective wellbeing (life satisfaction score) to income is presumed from the data according to an individual socio-economic profile. Subsequently, using these functions, the change in the aggregation of subjective well-being by certain redistribution is estimated.
As a result of the analysis, two main findings are obtained. First, in both the redistribution of individual income model and the family income model, the effect of the egalitarian redistribution of income on the aggregation of subjective well-being is restrictive. Second, a moderate equalized redistribution results in maximum increase of the social aggregation of subjective well-being. This suggests that a moderate equal distribution is effective for the purpose of the efficient improvement of societal well-being.
