Abstract
Studies of human reactions to noise have often also studied possible
impacts of nonacoustic variables such as income, education and occupational
status. While such social status variables have been shown to modify
health outcomes they do not have any important effect in noise-annoyance
studies. However, the socio-acoustic research analyses usually employ
regression models where the noise each person is exposed to is regarded
as exogenous, i.e given. This precludes the analysis of indirect
effects, such as wealthy people buying themselves out of noisy neighbourhoods.
To explore this type of indirect effects, the relationship between
noise exposure, income and noise annoyance is investigated a step
further in this paper. Structural equation models incorporating both
direct and indirect pathways have been estimated using data from
six socio-acoustic surveys combining individual noise exposure measures
with questions on noise perception and background characteristics.
The hypothesis that high-income groups buy themselves free from noise
is only partly confirmed. It seems to hold true for residents of
a small-to-medium size city, but not for residents of a larger city.
With respect to income as a possible modifier of annoyance, the previous
results that no such moderating effects can be found are confirmed.
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