Effects of objective and subjective environmental pollution on well-being in urban China: A structural equation model approach

Fan Li and Tao Zhou

Social Science & Medicine, 2020, vol. 249, issue C

Abstract: Environmental pollution has become an increasingly severe problem in recent years and has aroused extensive concern. However, the influences of environmental factors on human well-being, especially their internal paths and causality, have received little research. Using cross-sectional data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) for 2016, together with data on air, water, and solid waste pollution, this study explored the critical paths and causality of the influences of objective (actual) and subjective (perceived) pollution on perceptions of well-being. Perceived pollution had both direct and indirect negative impacts on well-being. Actual pollution indirectly affected well-being by influencing perceptions of health and pollution, but had no direct influence on well-being. Air pollution had a positive association with depression and a negative association with life satisfaction and happiness, while water and solid waste pollution had negligible associations with well-being. The negative impacts of both real and perceived pollution on health are the main ways in which pollution decreases well-being.

Keywords: Objective environmental pollution; Subjective environmental pollution; Well-being; SEM; Path; Causality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953620300782
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:249:y:2020:i:c:s0277953620300782

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.112859

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().