Urban and individual correlates of subjective well-being in China: An application of gradient boosting decision trees

Abstract

IntroductionSubjective well-being (SWB) is attributable to both individual and environmental attributes. However, extant studies have paid little attention to the contribution of environmental attributes at the urban level to SWB or their nonlinear associations with SWB.MethodsThis study applies a machine learning approach called gradient boosting decision trees (GBDTs) to the 2013 China Household Income Survey data to investigate the relative importance of urban and individual attributes to and their nonlinear associations with SWB.ResultsThe urban and individual attributes make similar relative contributions to SWB. Income and age are the most important predictors. Urban facilities make a larger contribution than urban development factors. Moreover, urban attributes exert nonlinear and threshold effects on SWB. Cultural facilities and green space have inverted U-shaped correlations with SWB. Educational facilities, medical facilities, and population size are monotonically associated with SWB and have specific thresholds.DiscussionImproving urban attributes is important to enhancing residents’ SWB.

The impact of epidemic infectious diseases on the relationship between subjective well-being and social class identity in older adults: The mediating role of Self-rated health

“…At this stage, most of the researches explore the factors affecting the SWB of the elderly from both individual and social aspects. Individual factors mainly include marital status, residential status, Self-rated health, and annual income [ 5 , 6 ]; social factors mainly include social capital, social support, socioeconomic status, and living environment [ 7 , 8 ]. These factors affect SWB of older adults from both physical and psychological aspects.…”