Mediating role of interpersonal interactions between Chinese farmers’ social networks and their subjective well-being

As more than half the population of China lives in rural areas, farmers’ subjective well-being is important to the maintenance of socialism in the countryside and the Chinese people’s target of comprehensively building a prosperous society. Using data collected in the 2012 Chinese General Social Survey, we built a regression model to examine the impact of farmers’ social networks on their subjective well-being, and the mediating effect of their interpersonal interactions on this relationship. Results showed that farmers’ social networks had a positive impact on their overall subjective well-being, which was, in turn, mediated by their interpersonal interactions. Farmers with well-developed social networks tended to have effective interpersonal interactions that satisfied their social psychological needs and enhanced their subjective well-being. Our findings provide a valuable reference for enhancing the subjective well-being of farmers in China.