Race, Education Attainment, and Happiness in the United States

Background and aims: As suggests by the Minorities’ Diminished Returns (MDR) theory, educationattainment and other socioeconomic status (SES) indicators have a smaller impact on the health andwell-being of non-White than White Americans. To test whether MDR also applies to happiness, in thepresent study, Blacks and Whites were compared in terms of the effect of education attainment on thelevel of happiness among American adults.Methods: General Social Survey (1972-2016) is a series of national surveys that are performed in theUnited States. The current analysis included 54 785 adults (46 724 Whites and 8061 Blacks). The yearsof schooling (i.e., education attainment) and happiness were the main independent variable and themain dependent variable of interest, respectively. In addition, other parameters such as gender, age,employment status, marital status, and the year of the survey were the covariates and race was thefocal effect modifier. Finally, the logistic regression model was used to analyze the data.Results: Based on the results, high education attainment was associated with higher odds of happinessin the pooled sample. Further, a significant interaction was found between race and educationattainment on the odds of happiness, showing a larger gain for Whites compared to Blacks. Racespecificmodels also confirmed this finding (i.e., a larger magnitude of the effect of education forWhites compared to Blacks).Conclusion: Overall, the MDR theory also applies to the effect of education attainment on happiness.Blacks’ disadvantage in comparison to the Whites in gaining happiness from their education may bedue to the structural, institutional, and interpersonal racism and discrimination in the US. Therefore,there is a need for economic and public policies that can minimize the Blacks’ diminished returns ofeducation attainment and other SES resources.