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Relationship Between Socio-Economic Values and Wellbeing: An Overview Research in Asia

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Abstract

This paper investigates ten Asian nations to consider how socio-economic values affect happiness and satisfaction. Moreover, it considers whether economic factors can strongly affect wellbeing under certain conditions. Males in Asia are said they have more opportunities to obtain higher happiness and satisfaction but it does not happen in the current study. Unemployment has negative and significant impact with regard to happiness and satisfaction in developing countries yet it does not have the same effect in developed nations. It is believed cultural value positively affects happiness and satisfaction in East Asia but the result in the models is different with no clear relationship between this variable and wellbeing. Furthermore, some people declare that a relative increase of income compared to the lowest group will lead them to lower life satisfaction.

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Notes

  1. We thank an anonymous referee for pointing out this fact.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon-si, Gangwon-do, 200-701, Republic of Korea

    Nguyen Ngoc Trung, Kimoon Cheong & Won Joong Kim

  2. Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Pham Thanh Nghi

Authors
  1. Nguyen Ngoc Trung
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  2. Kimoon Cheong
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  3. Pham Thanh Nghi
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  4. Won Joong Kim
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Nguyen Ngoc Trung or Kimoon Cheong.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Test Results

See Table 11.

Table 11 Mann–Whitney test, Cohen’s d and correlation r for effect size (China as the reference group)
Full size table

Appendix 2: Explained Variables

V10. (Recoded) Taking all things together, would you say you are

  1. 1.

    Not at all happy

  2. 2.

    Not very happy

  3. 3.

    Rather happy

  4. 4.

    Very happy

V22. All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?

  1. 1.

    Completely dissatisfied … 10. Completely satisfied

V68. How satisfied are you with the financial situation of your household?

  1. 1.

    Completely dissatisfied …10. Completely satisfied

V253. On this card is a scale of incomes on which 1 indicates the “lowest income decile” and 10 the “highest income decile” in your country. We would like to know in what group your household is. Please, specify the appropriate number, counting all wages, salaries, pensions and other incomes that come in.

  1. 1.

    Lowest decile … 10. Highest decile

Appendix 3: Variables Definition

Age: Age of respondent in the surveyed year.

Age2: Age square.

Illness: Dichotomous variable that equals to 1 if the respondent declares a poor state of health, and 0 otherwise.

Female: Dichotomous variable that equals to 1 if the individual is female, and 0 otherwise.

1Child, 2children, 3children, >3children: Dichotomous variables that equal to 1 if the person has 1, 2, 3 or more than 3 children, respectively, and 0 otherwise.

Married, as married, divorced, separated, widowed: Dichotomous variables that equal to 1 if the individual is married, as married, divorced, separated or widowed respectively, and 0 otherwise.

LOCA2, LOCA3, LOCA4: Dichotomous variables that equal to 1 if the individual lives in a place whose population is combined of between 10,000 and 100,000, between 100,000 and 500,000, between 500,000 and more, respectively, and 0 otherwise.

Primary, secondary, university: Dichotomous variables that equal to 1 if the highest education level that the individual has attained is primary school, secondary school and university, respectively, and 0 otherwise.

Im-politics and im-religion: Dichotomous variables that equal to 1 if the individual’s politics and religion are important, and 0 otherwise.

Obedience: Dichotomous variable that equals to 1 if the individual teaches obedience to children, and 0 otherwise.

Work: Dichotomous variable that equals to 1 if the individual’s work is not important, and 0 otherwise.

Part-time, self-job, housewife, student, unemployed: Dichotomous variables that equal to 1 if the individual is part-time worker, self-job holder, housewife, student or unemployed, respectively, and 0 otherwise.

Income2, income3, income4, income5: Dichotomous variables that equal to 1 if the questioned person is in the second, third, fourth or fifth quintile of income, respectively, and 0 otherwise.

Data limitations: Size of town is not available for Japan, South Korea, China and Hong Kong. For Vietnam, the data with the size of population between 100,000 and more is not available. It is also not available for the size of town less than 10,000 people in Taiwan. Nevertheless, this variable is still added to the model for other nations because of useful interpretation. For education variable in Japan, the data of attendants at primary school is not available too.

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Trung, N.N., Cheong, K., Nghi, P.T. et al. Relationship Between Socio-Economic Values and Wellbeing: An Overview Research in Asia. Soc Indic Res 111, 453–472 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0014-z

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