Department of Psychology, Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, B4 7BD, United Kingdom.
Department of Psychology, Maynooth University, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland.
Soc Sci Med. 2020 Sep;261:113217. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113217. Epub 2020 Jul 23.
It is often assumed that experiencing an upward shift in social position from one generation to the next will provide happiness, yet empirical evidence demonstrating such a connection is limited.
We provide a large-scale test of the relationship between intergenerational mobility and midlife life satisfaction using data from two prospective UK studies (N = 20,948).
Intergenerational mobility was modelled as a formative construct gauging the extent to which individuals moved up or down the social hierarchy compared to their parents, on a continuum ranging from high levels of downward mobility to high levels of upward mobility.
An intergenerational increase in social mobility, captured by greater educational attainment, social status, and home size than one's parents was positively associated with life satisfaction at age 42 in both cohorts. Mediation analyses revealed that almost half of this relationship was explained by better self-reported health and fewer perceived financial difficulties amongst the upwardly mobile.
This study provides evidence that enhanced satisfaction with life may be a key outcome of intergenerational increases in social status.
人们通常认为，代际社会地位的提升会带来幸福感，但实证证据对此关联的证明有限。
我们利用来自两项英国前瞻性研究的数据（N=20948），对代际流动与中年生活满意度之间的关系进行了大规模检验。
代际流动被建模为一种形成性结构，衡量个体与父母相比在社会等级上向上或向下移动的程度，范围从高度向下流动到高度向上流动。
与父母相比，在教育程度、社会地位和家庭规模等方面的代际社会流动增加与两个队列中 42 岁时的生活满意度呈正相关。中介分析表明，在向上流动的人群中，近一半的这种关系可以用更好的自我报告健康状况和较少的经济困难感知来解释。
本研究提供了证据表明，社会地位的代际提升可能是生活满意度提高的关键结果。
