That was exactly my motivation of asking this question. If you have a substantial disposable income available year-on-year, you have the option to decide whethe

That was exactly my motivation of asking this question. If you have a substantial disposable income available year-on-year, you have the option to decide whether to just pay-off your mortgage and then work in something of high personal value, but potentially with lower pay closer to the median. This will still leave you with considerable disposable income compared to your median-income peers at that point. Alternatively, so I thought, high earners could continue to optimize for high pay to afford more luxuries. My expectation was then that a considerable amount of high-earners would choose to trade income with work they value personally. Triggering social mobility by allowing someone else to take their place. Reading these threads, I am thinking now that maybe this is not so much relevant. If it is true, as others have suggested, that high-earners have more chances to get into positions that are well paid almost by default, than the choice for high earners is not between high income or valuable work. They can do both, because even when they start working for an NGO or take government position, their income would be expected to be high.