Being richer doesn’t necessarily mean you're smarter, study finds

A study from Linkoping University in Sweden, published in the peer-reviewed journal European Sociological Review, has found that high-earning individuals do not necessarily have higher intelligence than those in lower-paying jobs.

The highest-paying, most prestigious jobs are apparently filled by the smartest people, right?

Well, not according to new research from Linköping University in Sweden, published in the peer-reviewed journal European Sociological Review, which finds that high-earning individuals don’t necessarily have higher intelligence than those in lower-paying jobs.

In order to understand the relationship between wages and intelligence, researchers looked at the income data of 59,000 Swedish men, as well as cognitive ability test scores taken from military conscripts aged 18 and 19, which consisted of a series of physical, psychological and intellectual tests.

While people with higher incomes often scored higher on IQ tests, this appeared to only be true up to a point. The researchers found that the highest earners – the top one per cent – actually scored slightly lower overall compared to people with incomes of €60,000 ($86,251.50) and above annually in Sweden.

Surprisingly, people with jobs often seen as prestigious and requiring higher education, such as accountants, doctors, lawyers, professors, judges and members of parliament, were not found to have higher cognitive abilities.

As for everyone else, the majority of citizens were found to earn a salary on par with their intelligence level.

One noteworthy limitation of the study is that it didn’t consider the non-cognitive skills of high earners, such as motivation, social skills, creativity, mental stability and physical ability, which could be other contributing attributes to success.