Ever wonder why you can feel like your life is awesome one moment and then, even moments later, feel like everyone is better off than you? Or why a promotion or raise didn’t add one iota to your happiness?
Welcome to the strange, frustrating world of relative deprivation. I first came across the concept of relative deprivation in Malcolm Gladwell’s book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, and immediately recognized that there’s a great lesson that expats can learn from this psychological phenomenon. In fact, as expats, we’re more prone to the negative effects of relative deprivation than most people, but there are ways to escape from its discontenting grip.
Let’s dive in and learn what relative deprivation is, why it matters, and how we can escape its trap.
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What relative deprivation is
The concept of relative deprivation is, at root, quite simple: we compare ourselves to those around us, not to the entire globe. A typical family making $50,000 a year in the US is in the bottom 42% of the population in the US. That is, more than half of families (58%) have a higher income than this hypothetical family. But take that same family earning $50,000 a year and put them in Djibouti and they’re in the top 0.1% of the population.1
Now, if you live in the US and look around you at 58% of the population having more income than you, you might consider yourself poor. That same amount of income in Djibouti, though, will make someone feel quite rich. Why?
Because of relative deprivation.
We compare ourselves to our peers, not to the world
We compare ourselves, not to the standard of the entire world, but to the standard of our peers around us.
Relative deprivation goes deep
Relative deprivation doesn’t just play out on a global v. national level. The more likely we are to regard someone as our peer, the more likely they will be our reference point.
Thus, your salary and benefits may be better than local colleagues at your job, but if they are worse than another expat, you’re more likely to feel deprived. Why? Because that other expat is more of a peer reference point than the local staff.
You may have a nicer home than an expat on the other side of the city, but if an expat right next to you has a nicer home, then you’re more likely to feel deprived. Again, why? Because the expat in your neighborhood is a closer peer than the other across town.
The closer someone is to being your peer, the more likely they’ll serve as your point of reference in judging your satisfaction with life. Unfortunately, that comparison can completely overshadow the objective goodness of your situation.
Relative deprivation matters more than absolute benefits
That comparison will determine your happiness with a situation in relative terms, not absolute terms. What I mean by this is that your situation may be objectively quite great and better than 99% of the world, but if your closest reference point is better than yours, you’ll be more likely to judge yourself as deprived, rather than blessed.
Gladwell shares a fascinating study demonstrating this in chapter 3 of David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. A researcher named Stouffer researched how satisfied people were with how their organization recognized and rewarded their work and abilities. He compared people in the Military Police and those in the Air Corps (precursor to the Air Force). The result was quite clear: Military Police officers were more satisfied with their promotion and recognition than people in the Air Corps.
Surprisingly, though, people were more likely to be promoted in the Air Corps than the Military Police. In fact, the Air Corps’ promotion rate of 50% was one of the highest in the military and the Military Police was one of the lowest. So, why on earth were people in the Air Corps—who were far more likely to be promoted—actually less satisfied than people in the Military Police, who were almost guaranteed not to be promoted? It doesn’t make sense on objective or absolute terms, does it?
But if you recognize relative deprivation, it makes complete sense. As Gladwell explains and then quotes Stouffer:
Military Policemen compared themselves only to other Military Policemen. And if you got a promotion in the Military Police, that was such a rare event that you were very happy. And if you didn’t get promoted, you were in the same boat as most of your peers—so you weren’t that unhappy.
“Contrast him with the Air Corps man of the same education and longevity,” Stouffer wrote. His chance of getting promoted to officer was greater than 50 percent. “If he had earned a [promotion], so had the majority of his fellows in the branch, and his achievement was less conspicuous than in the MP’s. If he had failed to earn a rating while the majority had succeeded, he had more reason to feel a sense of personal frustration, which could be expressed as criticism of the promotion system.”
Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, Chapter 3.
Most Military Police weren’t promoted, so people didn’t feel deprived if they weren’t promoted and were elated if they were. On the other hand, since 50% of Air Corps people were promoted, people weren’t excited when they received the promotion and were resentful if they didn’t get one.
Your satisfaction comes by comparing yourself to your peers.2
Relative deprivation and the expat
I hope you find all of this as fascinating as I do, but what has it got to do with expat life?
Everything.
See, expats, like everyone else, compare themselves to their peers in order to determine their relative sense of being well off. Unlike everyone else, though, we’re more likely to see our peers as family and friends who are in our passport country rather than locals. If that’s our point of comparison, it’s nearly certain that we’ll be afflicted with Raging Expat Syndrome. Regardless of whether your host culture is richer or poorer than your passport culture, considering your passport country as your “normal” point of comparison is never going to lead to happiness.
Expats are more likely to compare ourselves to peers in their passport country, a recipe for discontent
I remember when I went to my passport country the first time after being away for nearly five continuous years. I met up with my good friend for breakfast and caught up. This friend I’ve known since I was a couple weeks old; he’s only a couple of weeks older than me and we literally grew up together. He’s most decidedly someone I regard as a peer. I was super glad to meet him for breakfast, but I left the conversation struggling with satisfaction.
Why? Because, in the years I had been gone, he had received several promotions, had a salary that was double mine, and had purchased a home. Even though my salary is far better than locals in my town, knowing that it was less than my lifelong friend and peer carried more emotional weight than being better off than my local friends.
Comparing yourself to people in your passport country, regardless of whether that country is richer or poorer than your host country, is a recipe for disaster. Why? Because, even if there are areas where your host country is superior to your passport country, there are always areas where it is worse. Our tendency towards relative deprivation will make us fixate on the worse comparisons.
Instead, what do you do?
Avoiding the trap of relative deprivation
As I wrote this article, I initially thought of ways to use the concept of relative deprivation to your advantage. For example, making sure that what you regard as “normal” or a “peer” point of comparison are people in your host culture. Resetting your sense of “normal” to local standards will go a long way to avoiding a sense of relative deprivation due to a wrong comparison point. That’s true, and it will help you make better comparisons of how good your life is.
Likewise, comparing yourself to those less fortunate can help you reset your sense of deprivation. Enter your income into a Global Wealth Calculator and realize how truly blessed you are. Consider the marble-in-an-Olympic-pool example and see how much more you are blessed than those in the world. That can go a long way to diminishing your sense of relative deprivation.
All of those things can help. But none of them will solve your most fundamental problem, which is that you’ll never be actually, truly, content if your sense of joy is based on a comparison to others.
Happiness based on comparisons to others is fleeting.
Happiness based on comparisons to others is fleeting. It won’t satisfy. Comparisons provide no stable foundation for joy, peace, or satisfaction
What does?
Contentment: The antidote to relative deprivation
If you’re content with who you are and what you have, there will be no impulse, desire, or need to compare yourself to others. On the other hand, if you are discontent, you will almost surely start comparing yourself to others.
If you want to grow in contentment, stop making comparisons. Contentment doesn’t grow from the soil of comparisons, even if your judgment is that you’re comparatively better off than others.
Comparisons and contentment are mutually exclusive.
No, contentment only comes by rejecting comparisons and rooting your joy in gratefulness for what you have. Gratitude breeds contentment. Comparisons destroy it.
As I write this article in a coffee shop, What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong came on the speakers. It’s a beautiful addition to this article:
I see trees of green, red roses too,
I see them bloom for me and for you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful worldI see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright, blessed days, dark sacred nights
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Armstrong’s song is a classic because it so lovingly identifies small, simple, beautiful treasures of life that we take for granted as we compare ourselves to others.
The antidote to a sense of relative deprivation isn’t changing your point of comparison. The antidote is taking a moment to slow down and be grateful for the simple pleasures and beauties around you.
Life is an undeserved gift, each breath an unmerited blessing, each moment of beauty an unearned joy. Treasure the blessings you have and practice gratitude for them. Only then can you grow in contentment.
Conclusion
A sense of relative deprivation from comparisons quietly shapes how we view our lives as expats. Whether it’s to locals or people in your passport country, comparisons will erode your happiness even when your situation is objectively good. Thankfully, there’s a way out of this trap.
Contentment isn’t about finding the perfect reference group or doing better than others in your peer group. Contentment comes from rejecting the comparison game entirely and cultivating gratitude for the blessings in your life. This shift in mindset won’t just neutralize the effects of relative deprivation, it will enable you to have joy that transcends your circumstances.
So, the next time you catch yourself comparing your life to that of a peer, pause. Don’t compare your life to theirs but take a moment, instead, to appreciate the blessings in your life. A deep, abiding sense of contentment comes from countless quiet moments of gratitude.
Cultivate contentment, not comparisons.
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Footnotes
- Djibouti was chosen at random—well, not quite random, I picked it because it’s fun to say. I didn’t pick it because the numbers turned out the way I wanted them, that was literally a happy coincidence. ↩︎
- Gladwell gives two other examples, the first from economist Mary Daly: The suicide rate is higher in countries where people declare themselves to be very happy than in countries where people say they’re not happy. Why is this? Because if everyone around you is miserable, your sadness is normal and you’re not deprived, but it’s difficult to be depressed in a place where everyone else is happy. The second example is from Carol Graham: poor people in Honduras are far happier than poor people in Chile, even though Honduras is a poorer country. Poor Honduran people are closer to the middle class than poor Chileans and so their relative happiness is higher even though their absolute poverty is worse. ↩︎