Height, Weight and Well-Being for Rural, Urban and Migrant Workers in China

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. In general, the happiness literature has paid little attention to the relationship between physical appearance and well-being. In this paper, we examine the link between weight, height and well-being for three distinct samples in China given that attractiveness effects likely vary greatly across sociocultural contexts. As China has recently undergone rapid economic transformation in the urban areas, this empirical exercise is particularly interesting because it can highlight how changing social norms have affected the relationship between physical appearance and subjective well-being. For the rural and migrant samples, we find that for both men and women, big and tall individuals have higher levels of well-being. This is consistent with the notion that the strong are better off when more labor intensive work is the norm. For the urban sample and for urban males in particular, no well-being penalty is found for being obese, unlike previous results based on Western samples. It is very likely that the unique Chinese cultural practice of network building banquets and feasting is behind this finding.JEL Classification: I10, I30

Psychosocial Wellbeing Among Rural Migrant Workers in China: Did the 2008 Financial Crisis Worsen Their Vulnerability?

“…RUMiC is a large-scale, five-year longitudinal and representative survey of Chinese rural migrants from 2008 to 2012 (Zhao, 2015, pp. 88-9;Lee & Zhao. 2015;Zhang, 2017, p. 115;Akgüc et al, 2014).…”

“…The RUMiC consists three of independent surveys: the Rural Household Survey (RHS), the Urban Household Survey (UHS), and the Migrant Household Survey (MHS). Both wave 1 (in 2008) and wave 2 (in 2009) of the MHS include detailed information about personal characteristics, educational attainment, socioeconomic status and mental health status, as shown in Table 2 (Tani, 2015;Lee & Zhao, 2015).…”

Height and life satisfaction: Evidence from 27 nations

“…Since then the determinants of human height have been the subject of increased interest by social scientists (Borrescio‐Higa, Bozzolib, & Drollerc, ). The reason is that height is an important predictor of earnings (Böckerman & Vainiomäki, ; Case & Paxson, , ; Cinnirella & Winter, ), job productivity (Bargain & Zeidan, ; Lee & Zhao, ), health (Lundborg, Nystedt, & Rooth, ; Perelman, ; Whitley, Rasmussen, Tynelius, & Batty, ), human capital (LaFave & Thomas, ), cognitive and non‐cognitive social skills (Benz & Frey, ; Rietveld et al, ; van Praag & Ferrer‐i‐Carbonell, ), as well as marriage and career successes (Janson et al, ; Lindqvist, ; Pollet & Nettle, ; Stulp, Buunk, Verhulst, & Pollet, ).…”

“…A second channel is the labor market. Height is positively associated with better labor market outcomes insofar as taller individuals are more productive due to their greater levels of physical strength (Bargain & Zeidan, ; Lee & Zhao, ; Pitt, Rosenzweig, & Hassan, ). Furthermore, taller individuals possess higher levels of cognitive, non‐cognitive, and social skills, as well as intelligence (Case & Paxson, , ; Cinnirella & Winter, ; Persico, Postlewaite, & Silverman, ).…”

“…Despite the above‐discussed strong theoretical underpinnings, surprisingly few studies have attempted to empirically confirm the positive influence of height on life satisfaction outside of developed countries. Among the relatively few studies conducted in developing countries, Lee and Zhao () found that in China, height is associated with higher life satisfaction only among migrants from rural to urban areas, while the effect is not significant for individuals residing in urban or rural areas. In contrast, Bargain and Zeidan () reported a positive effect of height on life satisfaction in Indonesia.…”