The Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Elderly Well Being in Guangdong, China: The Chain Mediating Effect of Social Support and Healthcare Conditions

Abstract

This study adopted a random sampling approach to distribute questionnaires among permanent residents aged 60 and above, covering both urban and rural regions across the Pearl River Delta, Eastern Guangdong, Western Guangdong, and Northern Guangdong. Grounded in the social determinants of health framework and the health belief model, the study employed SPSS 27.0 software and the Bootstrap method to conduct an empirical investigation into how socioeconomic status shapes older adults’ well-being, with a specific focus on verifying the chain mediating effect of social support and healthcare conditions. Correlation analysis results revealed significant positive pairwise associations between older adults’ well-being and three key variables: socioeconomic status, social support, and healthcare conditions. Statistical analysis further demonstrated that the direct effect of socioeconomic status on well-being is relatively limited, accounting for merely 10% of the total effect. This suggests that socioeconomic status rarely influences elderly well-being directly; instead, its impacts are mainly realized via the parallel mediating roles of social support and healthcare conditions. Importantly, the findings confirmed a valid and significant chain mediating pathway, structured as follows: “socioeconomic status → social support → healthcare conditions → well-being”. In addition, demographic factors including age, gender, and marital status were found to have no statistically significant effect on the well-being of older adults in the sample. This research addresses the insufficient localized empirical studies on Guangdong’s elderly population. It also offers reliable empirical evidence to inform targeted improvements in regional healthcare resource allocation and the construction of more comprehensive social support systems for older adults in Guangdong Province..