Money matters for future well-being: A latent growth analysis and meta-analytic integration of associations between income, financial satisfaction, and 22 well-being variables across three data sets.

Abstract

Are subjective or objective indicators of money more strongly associated with well-being in the short- and long term? We revisit this practically important question using a multidata, multioutcome, longitudinal approach to comprehensively examine whether income and financial satisfaction would be associated with short-term and long-term well-being. Specifically, using latent growth modeling, we analyzed three public-sample data sets from the United States and South Korea-the Midlife in the U.S. Study, the Understanding America Study, and the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging. Specifically, we examined whether individual differences in income and financial satisfaction would be associated with individual differences in well-being or to changes in well-being over time. We also analyzed whether changes in income or financial satisfaction could be predicted by individual differences in well-being. Finally, we examined whether changes in income and financial satisfaction would covary with changes in well-being. In total, 22 well-being variables were examined, and all standardized effect sizes were subjected to a multilevel multivariate meta-analysis. Results from the meta-analysis indicated that starting financial satisfaction was related to better starting well-being (d = 1.54) and changes in financial satisfaction covaried positively with changes in well-being (d = .79), but starting financial satisfaction did not predict changes in well-being. Conversely, starting income was unrelated to starting well-being, and changes in income were unrelated to changes in well-being, but starting income significantly predicted more positive trajectories of change in well-being with a medium effect size (d = .40). Starting well-being was unrelated to changes in financial satisfaction or income. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).