Life Satisfaction Influences in Adult Mexican Americans

Background/Purpose: The cognitive component of the subjective well-being (SWB) construct, referred to as life satisfaction, is the evaluation on one's life as a whole (Pavot & Diener, 1993). Life satisfaction is a direct expression of avowed happiness and is a judgmental process in which individuals assess the quality of their lives on the basis of their own unique set of criteria. One's degree of satisfaction with his or her life has been found to be a predictor of longevity and physical morbidity and is strongly associated with all-cause mortality (Koivumaa-Honkanen, 2004). There is documented agreement that a number of behavioral and sociodemographic factors are related to life satisfaction. General population correlates of the cognitive evaluation on one's life include health, age, gender, marital status, education, physical activity, and acculturation. The purpose of this study was to extend the research on factors attributing to SWB through identification of variables influencing the life satisfaction of adult Mexican Americans, the largest and fastest growing U. S. ethnic minority.

Method: The study sample was drawn from the parents and adult relatives of fourth- and fifth-grade students enrolled in four U. S./Mexico border-serving elementary schools of two school districts located in the Lower Rio Grande Valley region of Texas. Data were gathered through a self-report survey instrument, in both English and Spanish, comprised of a life satisfaction scale and acculturation, age, gender, ethnicity, health, physical activity, education, and marital status measurement items. One hundred sixty-two males (M age 41.8; age range 20-68 years) and 375 females (M age 35.8; age range 21-66 years) served as study participants.

Analysis/Results: To assess for life satisfaction influences, stepwise regression analysis was performed to provide a measure of the relative contribution of investigated variables to respondents' level of satisfaction with his or her life. Among males, analysis revealed health (12% of the variance) followed by physical activity involvement (7% of the variance) to be most predictive of one's possessing greater life satisfaction while among females, being married (8% of the variance), health (6% of the variance), and educational level (4% of the variance) emerged as predictors of greater satisfaction.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that promoting and enhancing the SWB of Mexican Americans is a function of being in a stable, supportive marital relationship and a result of the complex interaction of educational attainment and physical activity participation effecting health status.