Ford Tiffany N, Kubzansky Laura D, Mitchell Uchechi A, Graham Carol
Division of Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Illinois Chicago, 1603 W. Taylor St, Chicago, IL, 60612, USA.
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2025 Sep 2. doi: 10.1007/s40615-025-02621-4.
Minorities' Diminished Return (MDR) theory suggests systematically smaller effects of socioeconomic status (SES) indicators on the health of non-white populations compared to white in the United States (US). We test whether MDR theory holds with regard to subjective well-being (SWB) by investigating racial differences in the association between SES and SWB in the US using data from the Gallup Healthways survey. Our analysis included 126,669 non-Hispanic Black and white US adults. A composite SES variable comprised of financial, education, and occupation indicators was the independent variable. Life satisfaction, measured by the Cantril Ladder, was the dependent variable. Covariates included self-reported health problems, age, sex, and marital status. Race/ethnicity was tested as a moderator of the primary relationships. We estimated linear regression models in the overall sample, with and without race x SES interactions, and examined the associations between SES and SWB stratified by race/ethnicity. Findings demonstrated the strength of associations between SES and SWB differed among Black and white sub-groups. NH white adults experienced consistent increases in life satisfaction across all SES groups, while NH Black adults only begin to benefit from increasing SES when they transition from the low middle SES group to the higher SES groups. MDR theory is a relevant framework to understand potential racialized effects of SES on SWB. Multilevel policy interventions, including anti-discrimination policies, could begin to address the broken ties between SES and SWB in the US. Additional research is needed on whether MDR theory holds for other SWB domains and other SWB assets.
少数群体回报递减（MDR）理论表明，在美国，与白人相比，社会经济地位（SES）指标对非白人健康的影响在系统上更小。我们通过使用盖洛普健康之路调查的数据，研究美国SES与主观幸福感（SWB）之间关联的种族差异，来检验MDR理论是否适用于主观幸福感。我们的分析纳入了126,669名非西班牙裔美国黑人和白人成年人。一个由财务、教育和职业指标组成的综合SES变量作为自变量。通过坎特里尔阶梯量表衡量的生活满意度作为因变量。协变量包括自我报告的健康问题、年龄、性别和婚姻状况。种族/族裔被作为主要关系的调节变量进行检验。我们在总体样本中估计了有无种族×SES交互项的线性回归模型，并按种族/族裔分层研究了SES与SWB之间的关联。研究结果表明，SES与SWB之间关联的强度在黑人和白人亚组中有所不同。非西班牙裔白人成年人在所有SES组中生活满意度都持续提高，而非西班牙裔黑人成年人只有在从中等偏下SES组过渡到较高SES组时才开始从SES的提高中受益。MDR理论是理解SES对SWB潜在种族化影响的一个相关框架。包括反歧视政策在内的多层次政策干预可以开始解决美国SES与SWB之间断裂的联系。关于MDR理论是否适用于其他SWB领域和其他SWB资产，还需要进一步研究。
