With the acceleration of China’s aging society, how to enhance the subjective well-being of older adults has become a core issue of concern. This study aims to explore the influence mechanisms of socioeconomic status, health, recreation, and the number of children on the well-being of older adults based on the Self-Determination Theory. The study uses the data (n = 818) from CGSS 2021 and employs the Structural Equation Model for empirical analysis. The results show that socioeconomic status has no significant direct effect on well-being, but through health and recreation to exerts a significant indirect effect; health is a significant predictor of well-being; recreation not only directly enhances well-being, but also indirectly exerts a beneficial effect by promoting health; the number of children has a weak positive effect, but the improvement of socioeconomic status significantly reduces the number of children; older adults with high well-being show a downward trend in recreation.
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