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Measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale by gender, age, marital status and educational level

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Abstract

Introduction

The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) has shown strong evidence of acceptability, reliability, validity and invariance for gender, whereas there is mixed evidence of invariance by culture and age and the literature has not explored the roles of marital status and educational level. The SWLS should be invariant by marital status and educational level to be able to compare scores between groups. We aimed to explore the invariance of the SWLS by marital status and educational level.

Method

A convenience sample of 726 Spanish adults participated in a survey. We tested a one-factor model using confirmatory factor analysis. We tested the configural, metric and scalar invariance of the factorial structure of the SWLS by gender, age, marital status and level of education.

Results

The results show a scalar invariance by gender and educational level and a partial scalar invariance by marital status. Women and individuals in a relationship show greater subjective well-being while no differences are observed among people with different educational levels.

Discussion

The SLWS is valid for comparisons between genders, age, educational levels but not for marital status. It is essential to verify its invariance to interpret mean differences and significance values appropriately.

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Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P30AG035982. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universitat de Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Irene Checa & Begoña Espejo

  2. University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Fairway, KS, USA

    Jaime Perales

Authors
  1. Irene Checa
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Correspondence to Irene Checa.

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Conflict of interest

The authors of this manuscript certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

Ethical approval

Study procedures were determined by the University of València data control technician (and current director of the Chair of Privacy and Digital Transformation Microsoft-UV) as constituting non-identifiable, minimum risk survey research, in a private document signed electronically dated March 20th, 2015. Because it was an anonymous survey study, approval by the ethical committee is not necessary, according to Spanish legislation.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Checa, I., Perales, J. & Espejo, B. Measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale by gender, age, marital status and educational level. Qual Life Res 28, 963–968 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-018-2066-2

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