Understanding Elderly Well-Being in Public Nursing Homes:An Empirical Study of China’s Basic Pension InsuranceSystem in Yunnan Province

As the degree of population aging in China continues to deepen, public nursing homes have ‎become an important institutional care option for the elderly who rely on basic pension ‎insurance. Although material security is continuously improving, the subjective well-being of ‎the elderly in institutional environments still faces many challenges. This study integrates ‎Ecosystem Theory, Self-Determination Theory, and Subjective Well-being Theory to construct a ‎multi-level ecological–psychological model, aiming to systematically reveal the influencing ‎pathways and mechanisms of well-being among the elderly in public nursing homes.‎ Through face-to-face questionnaire surveys conducted among the elderly in several public ‎nursing homes in Yunnan Province, with a valid sample of 400 participants, and using Partial ‎Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) for data analysis, this study found that ‎‎(1) health status (path coefficient = 0.116, p < 0.001), physical environment (path coefficient = ‎‎0.314, p < 0.001), and urban–rural resident pension insurance (path coefficient = 0.282, p < ‎‎0.001) all exerted significant positive effects on life satisfaction (R² = 0.426); (2) social ‎participation (path coefficient = 0.262, p < 0.001) and relatedness (path coefficient = 0.240, p < ‎‎0.001) significantly and positively predicted emotional response (R² = 0.155); (3) traditional ‎family-based elder care beliefs had a significant negative impact on the well-being of the elderly ‎‎(path coefficient = -0.115, p < 0.001); (4) competence directly and positively enhanced elderly ‎well-being (path coefficient = 0.158, p < 0.001), while relatedness indirectly promoted ‎well-being through emotional response (indirect effect ≈ 0.083, p < 0.001); and (5) life ‎satisfaction (path coefficient = 0.431, p < 0.001) and emotional response (path coefficient = ‎‎0.345, p < 0.001) played key mediating roles between multiple antecedent variables and ‎well-being.‎ This study not only theoretically expands the applicable framework for research on elderly ‎well-being in the context of institutional care but also provides empirical evidence and practical ‎insights for the operational optimization and service improvement of public nursing homes in ‎China. Particularly in economically underdeveloped regions, greater attention should be paid to ‎the synergistic fulfillment of environmental support, social integration, and psychological needs‎.