ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1585408
Investigation into the Subjective Well-Being of the Elderly: Employing Validated Factor Analysis and Hierarchical Analysis Methodology--Empirical Analysis Utilizing CGSS2021 Data
Provisionally accepted
- Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
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This paper examines the subjective well-being of older adults in China. Based on data from the China General Social Survey (CGSS2021), the agreement levels of 21 questions on the subjective wellbeing of older adults were extracted and analyzed. The 21 questions were categorized into positive and negative factors based on cluster analysis. For the 10 positive factors, the information entropy method was used to determine their weights and calculate the happiness scores of the elderly, and an average happiness score of 4.499 was obtained, of which the more influential factors were family income, personality control, and the natural environment; for the 11 negative factors, the unhappiness scores of the elderly were calculated by the confirmatory factor analysis and analytic hierarchy process, and an average score of 3.062 was obtained, among them, the more influential factors are health status, family communication and body parts. Overall, it shows that the subjective happiness of the Chinese elderly is strong and unhappiness is weak. Then we further find significant differences in the above scores of older people with different socioeconomic status through one-way ANOVA.Based on the results of the study, we finally proposed targeted recommendations to improve the happiness feelings of the elderly, including encouraging communication with family members and improving body parts.
Keywords: older adults1, subjective well-being2, Information entropy method3, Validated factor analysis4, Hierarchical analysis5
Received: 03 Mar 2025; Accepted: 21 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Cai and Tian. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ruiqin Tian, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China
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