The Impact of Residents' Leisure Time Allocation Mode on Individual Subjective Well-being: The Case of China

As the main tension in Chinese society has become that between people's growing need for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development, leisure activities have become a main factor affecting the subjective well-being of Chinese residents. This study uses micro data from the 2019–2020 Chinese Residents’ Economic Life Survey as the sample, applies the latent class analysis (LCA) method to conduct a joint analysis of all leisure activities of individuals, and then divides individual leisure time modes into four types: general leisure, stationary leisure, family-friendly leisure and sports/health care-related leisure. To overcome endogeneity problems from missing variables, sample selection bias, and two-way causality, this paper uses the Heckman two-step and propensity score matching methods to empirically analyse the impacts of residents' leisure time allocation patterns on individual subjective well-being. The study finds that sports/health care-type leisure is most helpful in improving individual subjective well-being, followed by general leisure, family-friendly leisure and stationary leisure, which have relatively weaker impacts on subjective well-being. The estimation results remain robust and reliable after we introduce the idea of ​​misclassification probability to test the robustness of the findings. On this basis, a group heterogeneity analysis by region, income level, education level, marital status and age is carried out. The research conclusions of this article can help guide residents in rationally allocating their leisure time and provide a policy reference for the construction of leisure facilities in China’s cities.