A Cross-national Study of Life Satisfaction: Demographics, Cognitive Age, Materialism, Fashion Innovativeness and Health Satisfaction as Correlates

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between life satisfaction (LS) and its correlates, which included key demographic (age, education and family size) and psychographic (cognitive age, materialism, fashion innovativeness and health satisfaction) variables, with samples from respondents in South Korea ( N = 464), China ( N = 321) and the United States ( N = 265 ). This article represents the first attempt to examine these variables across the three countries to gain important insights into cultural variations and similarities in the determinants of LS. Two-stage regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between LS as the dependent variable and demographic and psychographic variables as the independent variables. In the first stage, data from the three countries were combined, and all independent variables and two dummy variables for possible country effects were entered into a regression model. In the second stage, separate regression models were independently fitted for the three countries. The findings of this study indicate that, for all three countries, LS was not related to age and family size but was significantly related to materialism, fashion innovativeness and health satisfaction. Health satisfaction was the most significant predictor in all three countries. LS was related to cognitive age only in South Korea, whereas LS was linked to education only in the United States. The results of the study and its business and research implications are discussed.