Does Earning Little In Adulthood Lead To Low Self-esteem?

Most of us at some point in our lives believed that our salary was not enough. This is usually common during youth, a time during which we prioritized other aspects in the workplace, such as gaining experience in the field in which we wanted to work in the future or meeting new people. However, it is possible that somewhere in our heads the ideal persisted that the stage in which we would earn a higher salary would be adulthood; the moment in which we would be settled in a fixed place, probably with our own house and hopefully with a career.

However, the reality is that this ideal is not always met. In fact, most of the time, our professional future does not turn out as we planned. For this reason, this could lead many people to experience great disappointments or even feelings of guilt for not fulfilling what they expected of themselves for this stage, reducing their self-esteem.

In this article we will investigate How self-esteem could be affected by earning little in adulthood and the implications of this.

Insufficient salaries: a problem only for young people?

In a certain way, our imaginary accurately illustrates the employment situation of young people with respect to adults in postmodernity. In the mid-1970s, the globalization process brought with it a series of transformations that have modified the reality in which we live, from the advent of the Internet to that of consumer societies. Of course, such events also affected employment worldwide, especially with respect to the youth population. The requirements to access well-paid jobs became increasingly demanding —more qualifications, more experience—, which led to young people having to train exhaustively to get a job.

Inequalities increased between those with access to higher education and those who did not have such a possibility; and the rise of youth unemployment produced other phenomena at a social level such as the progressive postponement of the moment of independence from their homes.

However, although poor working conditions, underemployment or low-paid jobs were supposed to be transitory stages to which only young people had to adapt, in many cases they lasted over time even into adulthood. Not all young people were able to train in a specific area to access qualified positions and not all gained enough experience to achieve it. This is an increasingly common phenomenon that, however, can have a negative impact on the vision that these adults have about themselves. Specifically, having a low salary as an adult could negatively affect self-esteem. Let’s see what this is about next.

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is a psychological construct which refers to how we value ourselves and to what extent we have confidence in our own skills or abilities The fact that a person’s self-esteem is higher or lower than another depends on their personal history, so its constitution begins in early childhood.

This does not mean that it is a rigid or invariable concept, but rather that self-esteem can fluctuate over time. In fact, it is expected that this will happen, since its increase or decrease occurs according to the experiences that the person goes through in different instances of their life.

A person with low self-esteem could be seen as someone who frequently has negative thoughts about themselves; He is self-demanding to the point of putting his physical and/or psychological well-being at risk in order to meet his demands. It could also lead you to overthink things, potentially falling into habits of rumination. People with low self-esteem are more likely to develop high levels of anxiety and depression compared to those who score higher in self-esteem, so according to the scientific research carried out to date, self-esteem is significantly related to these and other psychological variables.

How do low wages affect the self-esteem of adults?

Taking into account what we mean when we talk about this variable, we can ask ourselves the question of what is the impact of the situation of adults with low salaries on self-esteem. This question has also been unraveled by some scientific studies and, indeed, it seems that earning little in adulthood negatively affects self-esteem. Accordingly, one study suggests that People’s self-esteem fluctuates according to the valuation of the salary received (that is, not necessarily the real salary), and not according to other factors such as job seniority.

This might not surprise us completely, since money for a person is one of the many possible incentives in the workplace. Several studies carried out with a wide range of workers – from fruit pickers to English soccer referees – seem to agree that receiving a good salary increases performance at work. The problem for people whose salary is insufficient is that they do not have such significant reinforcement to improve at work, which could not only lead to difficulties in accessing better jobs but also reduce their self-esteem. It seems to be a kind of cycle, doesn’t it? And if that was not enough, This negative assessment of one’s own abilities as a result of earning little could be transferred to other areas of life

At this point it is evident how low salaries impact self-esteem, since the judgment that people make about themselves affects areas completely unrelated to work, such as how good parents or partners they consider themselves to be, and can trigger high levels of dissatisfaction. with their lives.

Based on what has been described, we believe it is necessary to remember that a person’s worth should not be defined by their achievements or their economic status. However, it is logical that a person can feel affected by how much they earn: we live in a successful society, and many times the yardstick by which success is measured is money. The important thing is to question these preconceptions that tend to be deeply rooted in us. Finally, if you consider that your financial situation is affecting your self-esteem, it could be very useful to have the support of your closest friends and, if possible, ask for help from a mental health professional.