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Life Satisfaction in China, 2010–2018: Trends and Unique Determinants

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Abstract

This study is one of the first to explore the 5 waves of the China Family Panel Studies data from 2010 to 2018, assessing determinants of life satisfaction among a representative sample of Chinese individuals divided into different age groups. We employed the random-effects ordered probit method, and then handled endogeneity by estimating an Extended Regression Model. Several crucial conclusions are reached. Gender affects Chinese life satisfaction, and women tend to report higher life satisfaction than men. The Chinese elderly are more satisfied with life than younger individuals, while the “sandwich generation” may expect a long period of low life satisfaction in the future, which indicates that different Chinese generations are experiencing a “U” shaped life satisfaction trend. Surprisingly, education status is not powerful, and would be not a key variable in explaining Chinese life satisfaction, which may be related with “Credential Inflation” caused by the Chinese educational system reforms. Similarly, marital status is not crucial for the elderly’s life satisfaction, indicating that the phenomenon of “Happiness Rift” does not apply evenly in the Chinese society. Moreover, the social resources related with the Hukou type affect the Chinese individuals’ life satisfaction, but the influence may be less significant in the future as the Hukou system undergoes reforms. Lastly, socioeconomic status and subjective individual perceptions, such as relative income, social status, and future confidence, are powerful in explaining Chinese life satisfaction, suggesting that “a Triton among the minnows” analogy characterizes Chinese life satisfaction, which leads to regional discrimination.

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Notes

  1. Figure 1 shows the change and evolution of research topics by taking the year of keyword occurrence as the marker and the frequency of keyword occurrence as the cumulant. Each node is a keyword, and the connection between nodes indicates that there is a co-occurrence relationship between keywords. The co-occurrence frequency of key words is positively correlated with the font size of the node represented by the word in the map, so Fig. 1 presents the relationship and distribution of different topics in life satisfaction research.

  2. In the original data, some individuals did not report gender, birth year, or other basic information in one or more survey wave. Meanwhile, some individual information was inconsistent in the 5-wave sample (e.g., birth year). Therefore, we referred to the other values from different survey years, and revised or corrected the abnormal and illogical values.

  3. According to China’s geographic zoning (in our study, we only counted the coastal province or equivalent in mainland China based on the CFPS data), the coastal areas include Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangdong, Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian, Guangxi, and Hainan.

  4. The fixed-effect ordered probit models still have not been realized yet.

  5. Both Model 2 and Model 3 were estimated by employing the method of random-effects ordered probit.

  6. The “Easterlin Paradox” points out that there is no significant relationship between the average happiness of country and the GDP per capita (Easterlin, 1974).

  7. In Sect. 5, we also employed the data of CFPS 2010 to CFPS 2018 (5 waves) to provide some necessary and basic statistical results (e.g., reporting the average score, and correlation coefficient) for our analysis.

  8. “A Triton among the minnows” in this case is used as the literary translation of Chinese phrase “He li jiqun”, meaning that someone who appears to be tall only because they stand among shorts individuals.

  9. The “sandwich generation” represents adults, often in midlife, who care for both children and ageing parents/relatives (Gillett and Crisp 2017).

  10. “421 Family Pattern” means that one Chinese couple need to taking care of their respective parents, and raise one child, which is the immediate consequence of “One-child Policy”.

  11. The individuals of 1990s reported the highest life satisfaction scores in 2010 and 2012. After that, this group gradually become the “sandwich generation”, and the life satisfaction level dropped compared to the other groups.

  12. “Happiness Rift” describes the significant difference of subjective well-being between married and unmarried individuals, which indicates that married individuals have higher life satisfaction than unmarried ones.

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Funding

This research is fully funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Fund No. 2018M640156); National Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People’s Republic of China (Training Program for Young and Middle-aged Talents, No.2020000219); the research is also supported by “The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities” (Fund No. 2021GDZC08). The authors are responsible for the consequences of this article.

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  1. School of Economics, Minzu University of China, 27 Zhongguancun South Avenue, Beijing, 100081, China

    Kuo Zhang, Jipeng Pei, Shu Wang & Xiao Yu

  2. China Institute for Vitalizing Border Areas and Enriching the People, Minzu University of China, Beijing, China

    Shu Wang & Xiao Yu

  3. College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Minzu University of China, Beijing, China

    Karlis Rokpelnis

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  1. Kuo Zhang
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  2. Jipeng Pei
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Correspondence to Xiao Yu.

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Zhang, K., Pei, J., Wang, S. et al. Life Satisfaction in China, 2010–2018: Trends and Unique Determinants. Applied Research Quality Life 17, 2311–2348 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-021-10031-x

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