Abstract: Pursuing people's happiness is the ultimate goal of economic development. Income inequality and social fairness have an important impact on subjective well-being subjective well-being. Based on inequality aversion model and opportunity inequality theory， this study constructs a model of individual labor market participation by using the micro data of China general social survey and explores the impact of income inequality， perceived and actual fairness on subjective well-being. The results of research show that income inequality and subjective well-being have an inverted U-shaped relationship. The impact of income inequality on subjective well-being increases with the increase of perceived fairness. When the Gini coefficient reaches the inflection point， the positive impact of income inequality on subjective well-being disappears， and the negative impact of income inequality on subjective well-being decreases with the increase of perceived fairness. Compared with counties with higher actual fairness， in lower actual fairness counties， perceived fairness regulates income inequality and has a greater positive effect on subjective well-being.

Key words: income inequality, perceived fairness, actual fairness, subjective well-being