Socioeconomic status (SES) is a sociopsychological concept that is often thought of as a system of social stratification that defines assessment based on resources such as the economy (Howell & Howell, 2008). SES is a complex multidimensional structure that includes both independent objective characteristics, such as income and education, and people’s subjective evaluations of their position in the socioeconomic sphere (Navarro-Carrillo et al., 2020). People with a higher SES usually have better resources and richer social conditions (Akinola & Mendes, 2014). In contrast, people with a lower SES are more likely to face problems such as a lack of resources or economic difficulties (Tan et al., 2020). The Chinese president, Jinping Xi (2023), stated at the 14th National People’s Congress that building a happy society has become a strategic goal for social development in China, while achieving health for all and promoting the healthy development of society.

Past research has shown that subjective SES and objective SES have important effects on well-being and health (Curhan et al., 2014). Among the objective indicators long used to assess SES are income, education level, and occupation, but these present only a moderate correlation with well-being (Howell & Howell, 2008). In the measurement of subjective SES, Goodman et al. (2001) used the MacArthur Subjective Social Status Scale for assessment. This measure is represented by a 10-step social ladder where people judge their SES relative to others based on factors such as their income and education level. However, few studies have directly compared the relationships between objective and subjective SES and well-being and health, and Adler et al. (2000) called for testing of whether there is an interaction effect between these variables. Therefore, this was the primary research question of our paper.

Objective SES has been defined as an individual’s income status, education, and occupation (Manstead, 2018; Manuel et al., 2020), or a combination of the three (Haring et al., 1984), or as income status alone (Diener et al., 1993). These are the indicators participants comment on for researchers to assess their economic conditions and social resources. Income can provide individuals with a material base, high-end services, and different experiences. Education can provide individuals with interpersonal relationships that help improve well-being and health, among other positive outcomes (O’Neill et al., 2014). Occupation is an objective social factor that promotes well-being (Xiang et al., 2016).

Subjective SES is based on an individual’s comparison of their SES with that of others (Adler et al., 2000). Social comparison theory suggests that people tend to evaluate themselves subjectively through comparison with objective information and standardization (Suls et al., 2002). Therefore, subjective assessments based on social comparison processes play a key role in the study of SES (Kraus, 2018), and these are somewhat constructed through signals transmitted by social class (Kraus et al., 2011). Currently, the most common method used to measure subjective SES is the MacArthur Subjective Social Status Scale. Subjective SES is based on one’s subjective evaluation of their own status, which can be independent of objective SES. This has implications for well-being and health (Bukowski et al., 2020). Subjective SES can also act as a mediating variable in the relationship between well-being and health (Huang et al., 2017). Social stress theory suggests that people with low subjective SES are prone to psychological stress, which can lead to mental and physical disorders (Nurius et al., 2013).

Well-being is defined as “an individual’s assessment of [their] overall life or domain, such as income, health, family, or feelings, etc.” (Diener, 1984, p. 542). It is a comprehensive psychological indicator of an individual’s life quality and includes both cognitive and affective components. On the cognitive level, well-being refers to the overall assessment of a person’s quality of life according to their own criteria, that is, their life satisfaction (Diener, 2000), and on the affective level, well-being refers to an individual’s assessment of their current state of well-being (Bradburn, 1970). It has been found that SES affects individuals’ self-perception (Easterbrook et al., 2020) and well-being (Anderson et al., 2012).

Theoretically, lower SES may lead to poorer health (Kim & Radoias, 2019). It has been confirmed that people with higher levels of SES are better able to access and use health-related information (O’Neill et al., 2014), thus improving their health. Increasing income has a stable positive effect on people’s health (Ettner, 1996), which leads to better medical care and safer living conditions. Low income tends to imply harsher living conditions that reduce health status (Sørensen et al., 2015), resulting in higher levels of loneliness and higher mortality (Geboers et al., 2016). Health includes both physical and mental components. Mental health focuses on an individual’s self-assessment and internal mental abilities (Beyer & Boazak, 2021). Low SES can lead to increased mental stress (Lantz et al., 2005), ultimately increasing the risk of mental illness (Pepper & Nettle, 2017).

The aim of this study was to examine the independent and interactive effects of subjective and objective SES on well-being and health, respectively, through positive illusion theory and social cognitive theory. Our research findings will increase understanding of the boundary conditions of how subjective SES and objective SES affect health and well-being, and will provide a research basis for their potential interactive effects.

Theoretical Background

Method

Participants and Procedure

All procedures conducted in this study were based on the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and the ethical standards of the British Psychological Society. We used an online questionnaire to first conduct a prestudy; 80 questionnaires were collected. The sample was tested using SPSS 26.0 software and the results showed that the subscales had good reliability and validity and could be used for formal research.

The formal research phase began in September 2022, when we published our questionnaire on China’s largest online questionnaire distribution platform, Wenjuanxing (https://www.wjx.cn). To encourage completion of the report and to obtain real data, the following statements were listed on the front page of the questionnaire and the informed consent form: first, the data will be used only for academic research and will be kept anonymous and confidential; second, a reward of RMB 5 (USD 0.73) will be given for high-quality completion of the questionnaire; finally, an additional RMB 2 (USD 0.29) will be given for recommending the questionnaire to someone close to you. We asked participants to complete information about themselves and how they judge their subjective SES and objective SES.

We collected 276 valid questionnaires from 144 (52%) men and 132 (48%) women. There were 69 (25%) aged 18–20 years, 110 (40%) aged 21–25 years, 83 (30%) aged 26–50 years, and 14 (5%) aged over 50 years. In terms of education level, 15 (5%) had obtained a high school degree or below, 25 (9%) had a college degree, 191 (70%) had a bachelor’s degree, and 45 (16%) had a master’s degree or above.

Measures

The questionnaire consisted of two parts. The first part assessed the SES of the respondents and was adapted from the China General Social Survey, which was the earliest national, comprehensive, and continuous academic survey project in China, conducted by the China Survey and Data Centre of Renmin University of China (Zhang & Zhang, 2023). The first part covered both subjective SES and objective SES. The second part comprised measures of the well-being, mental health, and perceived physical health of the respondents. All scales were sourced from the existing literature and have been validated in prior research.

Objective Socioeconomic Status

Objective SES was measured by level of education and personal income level, using the standardized mean of the two measures.

Personal income level. Respondents answered the question, “What was your total personal income for last year?” We asked respondents to fill in specific values of their income, then we entered the values on a statistical income level scale, which was graded on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = RMB < 2,000 (USD 274) to 7 = RMB > 100,000 (USD 13,717).

Level of education. Respondents answered the question, “What is your current highest level of education?” by choosing from the following options: 1 = no education, 2 = elementary school, 3 = junior high school, 4 = high school, 5 = college, 6 = undergraduate, 7 = graduate and above. The higher the score, the higher the level of education.

Subjective Socioeconomic Status

We measured subjective SES using the MacArthur Subjective Social Status Scale (Adler et al., 2000), which was back-translated into Chinese by a bilingual researcher. The respondents answered the question, “Where do you think you are currently on this scale?” Response options range from 1 (lowest socioeconomic status) to 10 (highest socioeconomic status). The higher the score, the higher the subjective SES. As several levels had a difference of fewer than five respondents, they were combined to facilitate subsequent research. Specifically, the first and second, seventh and eighth, and ninth and tenth levels were combined to create seven levels for analysis.

Well-Being

Well-being was defined in terms of Diener’s (1984) definition of well-being and divided into three core components: life satisfaction, positive emotions, and negative emotions. Each component was assessed with five items rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The questionnaire was back-translated into Chinese with the help of a bilingual researcher. Sample items are “I am satisfied with my life in general” (life satisfaction), “I have had a positive attitude toward life lately” (positive emotions), and “I have been treating things negatively lately” (negative emotions).

Mental Health and Perceived Physical Health

Health was divided into mental health and perceived physical health and was assessed using five questions for each aspect, with items sourced from Du et al. (2019). The questions were back-translated from English into Chinese by a bilingual researcher. Responses were made on a 7-point Likert scale. Sample items were “How often have you felt depressed or down in the past four weeks?” (mental health), rated on a scale from 1 (very infrequent) to 7 (very frequent); and “How do you feel about your current physical health?” (perceived physical health), rated on a scale from 1 (very unhealthy) to 7 (very healthy).

Results

Model Fit Test

According to the results of the model fit tests (see Table 1), the proposed model had a good fit to the data.

Reliability and Validity Tests

We used SPSS 26.0 to test the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. The main factors analyzed were measured with psychometric scales, where the quality of the data measured was an important prerequisite to ensure that the subsequent analysis was meaningful. Bartlett’s test of sphericity for the variables in this study showed that the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling accuracy was .92, which was greater than the critical value of .60 (p < .01), showing that the indicators selected were suitable for factor analysis. The means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and correlations between the study variables are shown in Table 2. Cronbach’s alpha for each dimension of the questionnaire ranged from .77 to .88. Therefore, the scales used in this study all had very good internal consistency and good reliability.

We tested the average variance extracted (AVE) and the combined reliability (CR) of each variable of the scale using Amos 26.0. The AVE and CR results in Table 2 showed that the variables in this study had good convergent validity and combined reliability, and reliable internal consistency. Meanwhile, the standardized correlation coefficients between the variables were compared with the AVE values corresponding to the dimensions, and the results showed that the AVE values were greater than the correlation coefficients between the variables; therefore, the variables in this study had good discriminant validity.

Direct Effects Test

We tested the structural equation model constructed for assessing direct effects using Amos 26.0 software to verify the relevant relationships between the variables. The results of the model’s path coefficients are shown in Table 3. There were positive relationships between objective SES and individual mental health, objective SES and individual physical health, objective SES and individual well-being, subjective SES and individual mental health, subjective SES and individual physical health, and subjective SES and individual well-being; therefore, Hypotheses 1–6 were supported.

Interaction Effects Test

We conducted a multifactor analysis of variance using SPSS 26.0 software to analyze the combined effect of two or more variables on a dependent variable. We examined the interactive effects of objective SES and subjective SES on each variable, and the results are shown in Table 4. Objective SES and subjective SES were both positively related to mental health and physical health. However, there was no significant interactive effect of objective SES and subjective SES on physical health and mental health; therefore, neither Hypothesis 7 nor Hypothesis 8 was supported. Objective SES and subjective SES were both positively related to well-being, and the interaction effect of objective and subjective SES on well-being was significant; therefore, Hypothesis 9 was supported.

Discussion

Through the above analysis, we found that objective SES and subjective SES have positive correlations with mental health, physical health, and well-being. There was also an interaction effect between objective SES and subjective SES on well-being, but there was no interaction effect between objective SES and subjective SES on either mental health or physical health. This is similar to the findings of Li and Lyu (2022), who concluded that both subjective social class and objective social class have a positive correlation with subjective well-being, and that there is a mediating effect on subjective well-being.

Individuals with high objective SES usually have more resources and live in a better environment, and they are freer and more relaxed, which leads to less mental stress and, therefore, higher mental health (Gallo & Mathews, 2003). At the same time, high objective SES affords them better access to medical treatments that improve their physical health, and gives them more resources to satisfy their needs. The meeting of these needs often improves their well-being.

We found positive correlations between subjective SES and individual mental health, physical health, and well-being. According to social comparison theory and social stress theory, individuals with low subjective SES face more sources of stress (Cohen et al., 2006), while generating self-doubt, which induces stress, causing damage to mental health and decreasing well-being, and may result in behaviors that are detrimental to physical health (Zell et al., 2018). Conversely, individuals with high subjective SES have better levels of mental health, which also encourages them to protect their physical health (Zell et al., 2018). Higher SES improves an individual’s ability to cope with life challenges, which leads to a stronger sense of well-being (Navarro-Carrillo et al., 2019).

The interaction between objective SES and subjective SES has a positive correlation with well-being. This indicates that the higher the objective SES, the higher the well-being will be, and the higher the subjective SES will be. If an individual’s objective SES is low, but that person is positive and unconcerned about their SES, they can still feel high well-being. Similarly, if an individual’s subjective SES is low, but their objective SES is high enough, then their basic needs and social resources can also improve their sense of well-being. Therefore, the well-being of people with low objective SES can be improved by helping them to better integrate into society, build more harmonious interpersonal relationships, and improve their self-awareness, thus improving their subjective SES.

However, there was no significant interactive effect of objective SES and subjective SES on mental health or physical health. This may be because these two types of SES have relatively independent mechanisms of action on mental health and physical health.

The main limitation of this study is that the scope of the data is not broad enough, as we included only participants in China. Each country is at a different stage of development, and people have different pursuits and different ways to obtain well-being. Therefore, future researchers could source participants from other countries to conduct comparative experiments or consistency experiments, so that conclusions can be drawn to better help people achieve well-being. In addition, we considered only the influence of academic level in measuring participants’ education. Education investment, knowledge reserves, comprehensive quality, and other factors were not considered. Subsequent research can optimize this measure. Future work could also focus on the impact of subjective SES and objective SES on health and explore whether the mechanisms by which they affect health are completely independent or whether there are inherent interactive mechanisms, which would be of great research value for improving health.

References

We received funding from the Heilongjiang Province Philosophy and Social Science Research Planning Project (21GLE297) and the Harbin University of Commerce Doctoral Research Initiation Fund Project (2019DS034).

Kewen Liu, School of Computer and Information Engeineering, Harbin University of Commerce, No. 1 Xuehai Street, Songbei District, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, People’s Republic of China. Email: [email protected]