The International Journal of Indian Psychology ISSN 2348-5396 (e) | ISSN: 2349-3429 (p) Volume 3, Issue 1, No.4, DIP: C00367V3I12015 http://www.ijip.in | October – December, 2015 © 2015 I A Jahan, N Tvagi, S Suri; licensee IJIP. This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Income Disparity as a Predictor of Happiness and Self-Esteem Azmat Jahan 1 *, Namita Tyagi 2 , Sushma Suri 3 ABSTRACT Context: Researchers have studied extensively whether people with higher income are happier. But still there is a controversy among the researchers regarding the relationship between income and happiness. Few researchers have demonstrated a correlation between higher income and greater happiness (Clark, 2008 and Chicago Tribune, 2010). Whereas other found that happiness remained stagnant despite large increases in average real personal income. (Easterlin, 1974) 90 female high school teachers from private schools in Delhi and NCR were taken as a sample of the study. All the participants were equally divided into 3 groups on the basis of their income i.e. 15,000-20,000, 20,100 – 25,000 and 25,100 – 30,000 per month. Context: Researchers have studied extensively whether people with higher income are happier. But still there is a controversy among the researchers regarding the relationship between income and happiness. Few researchers have demonstrated a correlation between higher income and greater happiness (Clark, 2008 and Chicago Tribune, 2010). Whereas other found that happiness remained stagnant despite large increases in average real personal income. (Easterlin, 1974) 90 female high school teachers from private schools in Delhi and NCR were taken as a sample of the study. All the participants were equally divided into 3 groups on the basis of their income i.e. 15,000-20,000, 20,100 – 25,000 and 25,100 – 30,000 per month. Keywords: Income Disparity, Happiness, Self-Esteem and Business Policy. An income disparity is most commonly an inequality in pay or salary for equal labor (Investor dictionary, 2014). This term is commonly used to describe the income differences between males and females for the same job or labour. However, they may be used in any situation when wages are arbitrarily different between two or more groups. Another term for the phrase economic disparity is economic inequality. However, income disparity is also used by those people concerned with the low level of the minimum wage, relative to the income of the wealthy. In this context, it is not equal money for equal work as itis in the previous sense, but the sense that money should be a just reward, earned when deserved at the rate that is deserved. For example, many jobs the poor take on involve much harder labor than jobs the rich take, and some rich people never work. If that were the 1 Ph.D. Scholar, Dept. of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia. 2 Student, Dept. of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia. 3 Assistant Professor, Dept. of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia. *Corresponding Author