The Influence of Socioeconomic Status on Subjective well-being, and Education on all-cause Mortality: Evidence from China

Abstract Background Well-being research involves sociology, psychology, ethics, economics and many other related disciplines. In recent decades, the research interest in well-being has been increasing in sociology circles, and well-being research has gradually matured. However, studies of the dependence between time-varying longitudinal measures of subjective well-being and survival outcomes are still scarce. The aim of this study was to conduct joint model analysis of longitudinal data and survival data to explore the influence of socioeconomic status on Chinese residents' subjective well-being and risk of all-cause mortality, and to assess the impact of longitudinal dynamic measurements on survival outcomes. Methods Using the adult data (>16) from the China Family Panel Studies obtained between 2010-2018, 67,260 samples of longitudinal data and 14,654 samples of survival data (753 dead samples) were finally formed. First, a spatiotemporal analysis of Chinese subjective well-being levels was conducted. Secondly, a joint model was constructed to analyze the independent contributions of years of education, family per capita net income, and social status to subjective well-being and risk of all-cause mortality. In addition, the impact of dynamic longitudinal processes on survival processes was explored. Finally, the individual dynamic survival probability was predicted. Results All three independent measures of socioeconomic status were significantly positively correlated with subjective well-being (P<0.01). Among them, social status has the greatest impact on subjective well-being, followed by family per capita net income, and the least impact of years of education. Survival analysis results showed that education was the only measure that was significantly associated with the risk of all-cause mortality, and higher education levels were associated with lower risk of death. Meanwhile, the study demonstrated that each unit increase in subjective well-being was associated with a 12.8% reduction in the risk of death. Conclusions Overall, socioeconomic status is significantly positively correlated with subjective well-being, and the increase in education level and subjective well-being will reduce the risk of death.