The association between education and subjective well-being has long been investigated by social scientists. However, prior studies have paid inadequate attention to the influence of societal-level educational expansion and skills diffusion. In this article, multilevel regression analyses, using internationally comparable data for over 48,000 individuals in 24 countries, detect the overall positive linkage between educational attainment and life satisfaction. Nevertheless, this relationship is undermined due to the larger degree of skills diffusion at the societal level, and no longer confirmed once labor market outcomes are accounted for. Meanwhile, the extent of skills diffusion per se is positively and substantially associated with people’s subjective well-being even after adjusting for key individual-level and country-level predictors, whereas other societal conditions including GDP, Gini coefficients, safety, civic engagement, and educational expansion do not indicate significant links with life satisfaction in the current analysis. Given that recent research suggests skills diffusion promotes the formation of meritocratic social systems, one may argue it is the process of fairer rewards allocation underpinned by skills diffusion, rather than the status quo of macroeconomy, economic inequality, social stability, and educational opportunities as such, that matters more to people’s subjective well-being.

社会科学家长期以来一直在研究教育与主观幸福感之间的关联。然而，先前的研究没有充分关注社会层面教育扩张和技能扩散的影响。在本文中，多级回归分析使用 24 个国家/地区超过 48,000 人的国际可比数据，检测了教育程度和生活满意度之间的整体正相关关系。然而，由于社会层面的技能扩散程度更大，这种关系受到破坏，并且一旦考虑到劳动力市场结果，就不再得到证实。同时，即使在调整了关键的个人层面和国家层面的预测因素后，技能传播的程度本身与人们的主观幸福感存在显着的正相关关系，而其他社会条件，包括 GDP、基尼系数、安全、公民参与和教育扩张，在当前分析中并未表明与生活满意度存在显着联系。鉴于最近的研究表明技能扩散促进了精英社会体系的形成，人们可能会认为这是以技能扩散为基础的更公平的奖励分配过程，而不是宏观经济、经济不平等、社会稳定和教育机会等现状，这对人们的主观幸福感更重要。