The Impact of Air Pollution on Residents’ Happiness: A Study on the Moderating Effect Based on Pollution Sensitivity

Abstract

Promoting people’s happiness is a vital goal of public policy, and air pollution, as the focus of public opinion, is an important influencing factor of residents’ happiness. Although previous literature has explored the relationship between air pollution and happiness, the impact of pollution sensitivity on the relationship has so far received little attention. This paper uses the 2016 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey database (CLDS) to study the impact of air pollution on personal happiness and dissects the moderating effect of air pollution sensitivity from the stock and incremental perspectives. The results found that (1) there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between air pollution and residents’ happiness, such that happiness increases and then decreases with increasing air pollution. The PM10 concentration at the turning point is 119.69 μg/m3, which exceeds the national secondary standard limit (70 μg/m3) by 70.99% and is at the intermediate stage of mild pollution, exceeding the WHO recommended standard (20 μg/m3) by 498.45%, far higher than the international standard recommended level; (2) both air pollution stock sensitivity and incremental sensitivity have a significant positive moderating effect on the relationship between air pollution and happiness, and pollution sensitivity exacerbates the negative effect of air pollution on residents’ happiness by shifting the curve turning point to the left and steepening the curve shape; (3) in addition, the effect of air pollution on different groups is significantly heterogeneous, with lower-age and male groups more likely to have lower happiness due to air pollution; the positive moderating effect of pollution sensitivity is more significant in lower-age, female, and higher-income groups. Therefore, in order to enhance residents’ happiness, the government should not only improve air quality, but also focus on helping residents establish an appropriate subjective perception of air quality.

The mediating role of health status in the relationship between indoor air pollution and life satisfaction among older adults in India

“…Health: We used self-reported health to measure the health conditions of older adults. As per the available literature (Sanduijav et al, 2021;Tian et al, 2022), indoor air pollution was found to be highly associated with the life satisfaction of older adults, and health might mediate this effect. Therefore, we used health as a mediator for this study, and we hypothesize that health mediates the association between indoor pollution and the life satisfaction of older adults.…”

“…This indirect pathway is particularly signi cant considering the high levels of pollution observed in many developing countries, where indoor air quality is a critical health issue. According to Tian et al (2022), air pollution not only diminishes life satisfaction directly but also indirectly by exacerbating health issues that limit daily activities and overall quality of life (Tian et al, 2022). The research by Hassan et al (2022) supports this view, highlighting how energy poverty and the use of solid fuels can negatively impact life satisfaction through deteriorating health conditions (Hassan et al, 2022).…”

Air Pollution Governance and Residents’ Happiness: Evidence of Blue Sky Defense in China

“…We treated ordinal variables as interval variables, and the results did not show significant differences. Tian et al [42] also used this approach when analyzing the determinants of the happiness of the residents.…”

Air Pollution and Employee Protection: The Moderating Effect of Public Attention and Environmental Regulations

“…This study contributes to the growing literature in several ways. First, our study contributes to the burgeoning literature examining the economic consequences of air pollution [14]. By documenting the relationship between air pollution and firms' employment policies in China, we add evidence of the impacts of environmental risks on individual decision-making processes and firm strategies.…”