The Hidden Terrains of Disparity: How Residential and Workplace Socioeconomic Status Shape Perceptions of Inequality

HU Yuxuan, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Zhuoni Zhang, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Transcending the traditional focus on residential contexts, this study investigates how the socioeconomic levels of residential neighborhoods and workplaces shape individuals' perceptions of income inequality in urban settings. Using geocoded data from the 2017 Shanghai Urban Neighborhood Survey, we explore the interplay between structural determinism and relative deprivation mechanisms in daily activity spaces. Our findings reveal that the relative deprivation explanation holds greater explanatory power. Notably, lower-income individuals working in high socioeconomic status neighborhoods exhibit heightened perceptions of income inequality compared to their higher-income counterparts. Furthermore, we examine whether socioeconomic neighborhood homogeneity reinforcement or heterogeneity sensitivity effects predominate. Results indicate that individuals experiencing discrepancies between the socioeconomic levels of their residential and work neighborhoods perceive larger income gaps than those in consistent socioeconomic environments. These findings underscore the complex dynamics of intra-urban socioeconomic inequality and its impact on residents' perceptions of income equality in rapidly urbanizing societies.

Keywords: Geo-referenced/geo-coded data, Spatial Demography, Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination, Neighbourhood/contextual effect analysis

See paper.