Gender, Age and Cross-Cultural Differences in Life Satisfaction: a Comparison Between Spain and Mexico

The purpose of the study was to explore latent mean differences regarding country, gender and age in life satisfaction. The sample was composed by 701 adolescents (M-age = 14.93, SD = 1.83) from Spain (74.2%) and Mexico (25.8%). Confirmatory factor analysis modeling was used to test for multigroup measurement invariance. To compare groups two methods were used: (1) fitting two models and running an Anova; and (2) the Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes Model (MIMIC) which links an observed covariate (country, gender and age) with a latent variable such as the SWLS score. Results supported a single-factor structure. The internal consistency of the SWLS, and the tests of measurement invariance supported its strict invariance regarding country and gender, and strong invariance regarding age. Latent mean differences showed better perceptions in life satisfaction for males and the youngest, while no cross-cultural differences were found between adolescents from Spain and Mexico.