The Influencing Mechanism of Social Effort-Reward Imbalance on Life Satisfaction among Aging Workforces in the United States: A Longitudinal Study

Xinqi Lin,Yongchuang Gao

doi:10.3390/su132413957

Abstract

Improving life satisfaction is consistent with the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals. Although there are many studies examining life satisfaction, research on the influencing mechanisms remains a hot topic and scholars hope to explore more aspects that improve life satisfaction. The purpose was to explore how the relationship between social effort-reward imbalance and life satisfaction are mediated by positive and negative affect. We collected longitudinal data from 909 respondents participating in the 2008 and 2012 wave of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We used the first-order difference method and structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis to evaluate the validity of the proposed hypotheses. Our results demonstrated that social effort-reward imbalance was positively related to negative affect, and negatively related to positive affect. Positive affect was positively related to life satisfaction, while negative affect was negatively related to life satisfaction. The findings also indicated that positive and negative affect completely mediated the relationship between social effort-reward imbalance and life satisfaction. This study has made a contribution to the research on the influencing mechanism of life satisfaction from the aspects of theory and practice. Longitudinal data ensured that the conclusions were more reliable so that the study could provide useful suggestions for improving life satisfaction.

Highlights

Social effort-reward imbalance affects a high proportion of people globally [1,2,3,4,5]
This paper evaluates the impact of social effort-reward imbalance on life satisfaction of aging workforces and whether positive and negative affect mediate the relationship between social effort-reward imbalance and life satisfaction
The item, “In my current major activity I have always been satisfied with the rewards I received for my efforts” evaluates social effort-reward balance

Summary

Introduction

Social effort-reward imbalance affects a high proportion of people globally [1,2,3,4,5]. A greater proportion of the labor market will be made up of aging workforces, and the need to improve older adults’ sustainable employability means long-term abilities to work and remain employed in the workplace are highlighted [8,9]. As aging workforces are characterized by a reduced skill level and mobility, the phenomenon of social effort-reward imbalance among them is becoming more serious [11]. A potentially detrimental influence of effort-reward imbalance was underlined in a large cross-country study about aging workforces [12]. Studies have shown that social effort-reward imbalance can increase work stress while decreasing job satisfaction, which in turn indirectly leads to physical and mental health problems, such as increased cardiovascular risk, type 2 diabetes, and mental illness [13,14]. Workplace related factors such as depression, sick leave, presenteeism, and job burnout are directly related to social effort-reward imbalance [15,16,17]

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