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Why Economic Growth did not Translate into Increased Happiness: Preliminary Results of a Multilevel Modeling of Happiness in China

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Abstract

An influential stream of happiness literature has demonstrated that increased income did not raise individual happiness. Focusing on the case of Chinese society, this research aims to provide some preliminary accounts for the paradoxical observation that economic miracle in the country was not accompanied by more happiness. To this objective, our analysis starts with an investigation of the determinants of happiness in China, where a series of variables, measured both at individual and contextual levels, is incorporated to see the extent to which they explain the variance of personal happiness. Based on the findings derived from the multilevel statistical modeling, the research then moved forward to explore whether they have a clue for the happiness-income paradox in China. In particular, the research finds that social comparison and hedonic adaptation could be potential reasons for the happiness-income paradox in China. Furthermore, the empirical analysis provides novel clues on the ‘China puzzle’ by identifying the potential role of the adverse trends in other variables beyond income, which involves expanding social capital deficit, growing social inequality, and work-life imbalance.

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Notes

  1. In the article, despite nuanced conceptual difference, happiness, subjective well-being and life satisfaction are used interchangeably to refer to the degree to which an individual evaluates the quality of his or her life favorably.

  2. The survey also reported that overwork has been accompanied by a lack of paid leave for workers, with the amount of vacation time of the Chinese people falls considerably behind the world average.

  3. Since the average percentage of missing data for most variables is around 6 % (less serious in the CCSY), with that of self-reported income and expected income registered a bit higher. Nevertheless, the situation became worse when both sources of data were merged, which led to nearly 20 % of missing data on a few variables. To alleviate this problem, the Provincial Statistical Yearbooks, Local Government Annual Reports and the National Economy and Social Development Statistics Bulletin were relied on to collect supplementary data for the missing values of those variables. For those that were still missing, EM imputation (Schafer and Graham 2002) was employed to predict the missing values for the respondents’ household income, individual income and expected income as well as the two indicators measuring environmental pollution, namely, the emissions of SO2 and industrial dusts.

  4. In the regression analysis, the reference group was those who considered themselves to have a higher socio-economic position compared to their peers.

  5. Although GDP was treated as a control variable, its null relationship with happiness lends supports to previous findings that economic expansion has limited contribution to individual happiness (e.g., Easterlin 1974; Oswald 1997).

  6. The divorce rate was calculated on the basis of the data published by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China.

  7. In the CGSS conducted in 2006 and 2008, the survey did not ask those living in rural areas about their working hours per week and therefore, to ensure data comparability, the medians of CGSS in 2003 and 2005 were calculated on the basis of the urban sample.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme (Grant No: PIRSES-GA-2012-318961).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Politics and Public Administration, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, No. 2 Baiyundadao (North), Guangzhou, 510420, China

    Jiayuan Li

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Correspondence to Jiayuan Li.

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Li, J. Why Economic Growth did not Translate into Increased Happiness: Preliminary Results of a Multilevel Modeling of Happiness in China. Soc Indic Res 128, 241–263 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-1028-0

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