Not happy with your salary? Your smartness could be the reason behind less pay, says a study

Do you sometimes feel unhappy with your salary? Your smartness could be the reason behind this. As per a recent Swedish study, the biggest earners may not be the workers who are the brainiest.

A research, published in the European Sociological Review in January, found that higher general intelligence can only increase your salary up to a threshold of about $57,300 a year. Beyond this, the study found that ability plateaus as wages continue to rise. And earners in the top 1% score slightly worse than those in the income tier directly below them.

“We find no evidence that those with top jobs that pay extraordinary wages are more deserving than those who earn only half those wages,” wrote the authors of the study, which was led by Marc Keuschnigg, a senior associate professor for analytical sociology at Linköping University in Sweden.


“Extreme occupational success is more likely driven by family resources or luck than by ability,” the authors added.

The study analyzed the cognitive ability of over 59,000 men between the age of 18 or 19 and their earnings during an 11-year window between the ages of 35 and 45. The research was based on a standardized intelligence test the men took as part of compulsory military service, which included tests of verbal understanding, technical comprehension, spatial ability and logic.

Women and immigrants were not included in the study because military service was not mandatory for those groups between 1971-77 and 1980-99, when the initial data were recorded.

However, the research didn't include non-cognitive abilities— like motivation or social skills—that may help workers score high-paying jobs. The study’s authors also acknowledge other limitations to their work: For instance, the smartest people may not always opt for the highest-paying job over a more interesting or rewarding role.

Still, the researcher feels that the lack of a correlation between intelligence and salary at high levels is a warning sign about growing income inequality between the wealthy and the rest of society. The study was conducted in Sweden that has a relatively narrow income gap. “We can speculate that we might see this even more in places like Singapore or the US,” he said.

(With Inputs from Bloomberg)