But cutting their pay directly probably wouldn’t happen, nor would it make sense.

To be politically feasible, any cuts in the purchasing power of doctors and other service providers would have to be gradual and take the form of lower rates of salary growth, not outright salary reductions. People are far less sensitive to reductions in rates of growth than to simple pay cuts, as behavioral scientists have long known.

So the real question is: Would such a gradual shift constitute a painful sacrifice?

For some doctors, it might. But research on the determinants of human well-being suggests that the answer to this question is also somewhat surprising. That’s partly because the long-run link between money and happiness is complex, but also because salary is only one determinant of the satisfaction people derive from their jobs.

Most people believe that having more money would make them happier, but studies of happiness suggest that the truth is more complicated. As the authors of the 2017 World Happiness Report wrote: “People are constantly amazed that aggregate happiness has not risen in the U.S.A. and many other countries, when incomes and educational levels have risen so much and when income and education are associated with greater individual happiness.”

As expected, being poor — often defined as having less than 60 percent of a country’s median income — does indeed make people less satisfied. But once a certain absolute income standard is achieved, satisfaction depends more heavily on how one’s earnings compare with the earnings of others.

This should not seem surprising since, as Charles Darwin recognized, life is graded on a curve. How smart, strong or rich you are matters less than how those attributes compare with those of your closest rivals.