{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,3]],"date-time":"2026-07-03T06:18:47Z","timestamp":1783059527496,"version":"3.54.6"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,3]],"date-time":"2026-07-03T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1783036800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Public Health"],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>With the rapid development of the Chinese economy, happiness inequality is receiving increasing attention from both the scientific community and general public. The COVID-19 pandemic not only exerted a socio-economic impact but also contributed to the distribution of happiness among individuals in China. Therefore, this paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on happiness inequality in China. We specifically analyze post-pandemic shifts in this inequality, and the urban\u2013rural disparities.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The panel data from the China family panel studies (CFPS) database (2014\u20132022) was applied in this study, recentered influence function (RIF) regression and Oaxaca-Blinder (OB) RIF-decomposition were performed.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Our results indicate that the variance of happiness declined significantly after the onset of COVID-19. The RIF regression and decomposition analyses reveal that this decline was driven by the convergence of mean happiness across educational groups\u2014a trend already evident before the pandemic\u2014with the happiness of the least educated rising steadily, while that of the most educated declined markedly. Once educational attainment is controlled for, the post-pandemic year coefficients attenuate substantially. Urban\u2013rural subsample analyses confirm that this equalization pattern holds in both sectors.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The observed reduction in happiness inequality during the pandemic reflects structural convergence along educational lines, a process that was reinforced by the narrowing of within-group dispersion for most educational groups in the early pandemic period. Whether this equalization persists beyond the zero-COVID period remains an open question for future research.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpubh.2026.1834105","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,3]],"date-time":"2026-07-03T05:38:30Z","timestamp":1783057110000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Educational convergence and the equalization of happiness during the COVID-19 pandemic in China"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Weiwei","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology","place":["Zhenjiang, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yan","family":"Sun","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology","place":["Zhenjiang, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Gen","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology","place":["Zhenjiang, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yingde","family":"Tang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University","place":["Lanzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"351","DOI":"10.1007\/s10902-005-0003-x","article-title":"Inequality of happiness in nations","volume":"6","author":"Veenhoven","year":"2005","journal-title":"J Happiness Stud"},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"253","DOI":"10.1038\/s41562-018-0307-6","article-title":"Advances 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