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Well-Being and Physical Health: A Mediation Analysis

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Abstract

This paper’s aim is to propose a mediation framework and test whether lifestyle choices and social capital are pathways through which baseline levels of well-being affect subsequent physical health among older adults. Using large-scale panel data for Australia, we find that past levels of well-being have strong direct effects on present physical health. We also show that more frequent socialization and more frequent participation in physical activity are two pathways through which higher levels of well-being lead to better physical health. These mediating effects vary across gender. Our findings highlight a protective role of subjective well-being in physical health. Interventions taking into account not only the direct but also the indirect effects of well-being are promising avenues for physical health maintenance in the older population.

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Notes

  1. A related strand of literature shows that personality traits affect how people react to life events (e.g. Boyce et al., 2010; Buddelmeyer and Powdthavee, 2016; Kesavayuth et al., 2016); and that hedonic adaptation may occur over time (Boyce and Wood, 2011; Magnani and Zhu, 2018; Oswald and Powdthavee, 2008).

  2. Like Ohrnberger et al. (2017), we use physical activity, social interaction and smoking as possible mediators, but also consider additional pathways: participation in volunteer activities, and whether the individual is an active member of a social club.

  3. These are the only waves which collected data on all three types of well-being measures used in this study.

  4. It might be wondered what would happen if any of these four components is omitted. To this end, we dropped each component separately, and found that doing so brings down Cronbach’s alpha. In other words, using all four components provides a more reliable physical health measure.

  5. The base year is 2012.

  6. A variance inflation factor (VIF) analysis indicated that potential multicollinearity was not an issue regarding the choice of explanatory variables.

  7. Note that the initial condition of physical health, \({P}_{i,t=0}\), captures early life investments and health endowments.

  8. All estimates are significant at a p-value < 0.01 or stricter, as indicated in the table.

  9. Significance of the indirect effect can be tested using the Sobel test (Krull and MacKinnon, 2001; Sobel, 1982). This test has been specifically developed for mediation analysis, and allows us to examine whether the effect of baseline levels of well-being operates through each of the possible mediators.

  10. For example, there are gender differences in health behaviors which may stem from perceptions about ‘maleness’ leading to a greater willingness to take risks (Courtenay, 2000).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Stephanie Rossouw (the Editor), Olga Popova (the Associate Editor), and two anonymous referees. This paper uses unit record data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The HILDA Project was initiated and was funded by the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (Melbourne Institute). The findings and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to either FaHCSIA or the Melbourne Institute. Zikos acknowledges financial support from the Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, under its grant scheme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, 10900, Thailand

    Dusanee Kesavayuth

  2. Department of Finance, Faculty of Business Administration, Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi, 39 Moo 1, Klong 6, Khlong Luang, Pathum Thani, 12110, Thailand

    Prompong Shangkhum

  3. Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, 254 Phayathai Road, Pathumwan, Bangkok, 10330, Thailand

    Vasileios Zikos

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Appendix

Appendix

See Fig. 1 and Tables 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13.

Fig. 1
figure 1

The direct and indirect effects of well-being on physical health

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Table 8 Mediation effects on physical health using the second-period lagged values of the mediators
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Table 9 Mediation effects on physical health including a dummy variable that takes the value one if the respondent leaves the survey in the following wave
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Table 10 Mediation effects on physical health with non-linear age effects
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Table 11 Mediation effects on physical health controlling for other possible confounders
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Table 12 Mediation effects on physical health for those aged 50–80
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Table 13 Mediation effects on physical health for those aged 50–75
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Kesavayuth, D., Shangkhum, P. & Zikos, V. Well-Being and Physical Health: A Mediation Analysis. J Happiness Stud 23, 2849–2879 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-022-00529-y

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