Wellbeing is an important aspect of peoples life quality, and correlates with both personal and social development. The subjective wellbeing of residents, however, has declined with economic growth in recent decades in China. Meanwhile, the prevalence rate of mental disorders and suicide rate continue to rise. Using the 2013 CHARLS data, we aim to explore the impact of relative living standard on subjective wellbeing among Chinese population. CESD10 was employed to measure the participants depressive symptoms as the indicator of subjective wellbeing. We employ the model of instrument variable (IV) and find as follows. First, individuals with relatively higher living standard are less likely to be depressed, regardless of the reference group, and people with relatively higher living standard compared with his/her colleagues and classmates see the largest benefit, and county/city average level see the smallest benefit. Second, the impact of comparisons is asymmetric: the harm on subjective wellbeing due to lower living standard level outnumbers the benefit due to higher living standard level. Third, compared with richer people, those poorer people are more likely to compare with others, and are more likely to be affected by the impact of relative living standard. Our results imply the condition of “to worry about unequal distribution of wealth

than poverty” in China. The evidence on relative incomehappiness gradient justify that reducing income gap among people may also have the spillover benefit of improving population mental health.

幸福感是人们生活质量的重要方面，关乎个人和社会的稳定和发展。然而，最近几十年中国经济持续增长但居民主观幸福感却在下降，与此同时，精神疾病患病率和自杀率不断攀升。本文利用2013年CHARLS数据，以五种不同人群作为参照系，从抑郁症状(CES-D)角度实证考察相对生活水平对中国居民心理健康的影响。工具变量模型显示:第一，相对生活水平对中国居民的心理健康具有显著影响。不同参照系的影响存在明显差异，以同事和同学为参照的相对生活水平对心理健康的影响最大，以本县（市、区）人们为参照的影响最小。第二，生活水平的相对效应存在非对称性，相对生活水平较低引起的心理问题加重的程度明显大于相对生活水平较高带来的心理健康的改善幅度。第三，相比于高收入人群，低收入人群的心理健康更容易受到他人的影响。本文的研究结果较好地反映了当前社会“不患寡而患不均”的状况。因此，缩小收入差距的措施对改善居民的心理健康具有外溢效应。