Relative Income, Relative Assets, and Happiness in Urban China

Huang, Jin; Wu, Shiyou; Deng, Su

doi:10.1007/s11205-015-0936-3

Cited by 61 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Our findings confirm the relative income or social comparison hypothesis (e.g. Clark et al, 2008;Knight et al, 2009;Huang et al, 2016), as an individual's perceived income compared to that of peers in neighbouring areas and to his/her past income are both significant factors in predicting life satisfaction. To put these impacts in respect, increasing an individual's perceived income relative to his/her peers by two standard deviations, that is from 2.47 to 4.07 on a five-point Likert scale, is associated with about 253% increase in the odds of reporting a higher level of life satisfaction, holding all other variables constant.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…One explanation concerns the relative income hypothesis or the social comparison hypothesis which indicates that people tend to rate their satisfaction levels after comparing their current income with that in the past or that of others, corresponding to the multiple discrepancy theory (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). Relative income is reported to exert a larger effect on life satisfaction than absolute income (Clark et al, 2008;Huang et al, 2016).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 94%

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Does satisfactory neighbourhood environment lead to a satisfying life? An investigation of the association between neighbourhood environment and life satisfaction in Beijing

Dong

et al. 2018

Cities

113

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Associated with the dramatic expansion of Chinese cities are the unprecedented scale and pace of changes to urban living environment. There is an imperative to assess residents' perceptions of neighbourhood environment and the impacts on life satisfaction. Drawing on a large-scale residential satisfaction survey conducted in Beijing in 2013, we examine the finegrained spatial distribution and determinants of residents' life satisfaction. A multilevel ordinal response model is employed to investigate the roles of neighbourhood satisfaction, perceived relative income, socio-demographic characteristics, and contextual factors in predicting life satisfaction. Results show that satisfaction with key neighbourhood characteristics including safety, physical and social environments, and travel convenience is statistically significantly associated with life satisfaction. Income relative to that of peers in local areas or to that in the past is a more important predictor of life satisfaction than absolute income. Other individual-level variables, such as age, family structure, hukou status, health, commuting time, and housing-related variables including housing tenure and floor space, are significant correlates of life satisfaction.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 94%

Does satisfactory neighbourhood environment lead to a satisfying life? An investigation of the association between neighbourhood environment and life satisfaction in Beijing

Dong

et al. 2018

Cities

113

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Of particular note was the finding that neither AI nor RI significantly influenced well‐being when IA was in the model. Previous studies in China have found AI and RI to be significant predictors of well‐being (Han, ; Huang et al, ; Knight, Song, & Gunatilaka, ; Tsui, ). A reason for this difference might be that previous studies did not include a measure of IA in their models.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Which types of income matter most for well‐being in China: Absolute, relative or income aspirations?

2016

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China has experienced remarkable economic growth, but that has not been associated with increases in individual well-being, implying that well-being may not be sensitive to increases in absolute income (AI). Thus, the relationship between well-being and other types of income is worth investigating. This study employed a national sample of 5471 respondents from 31 provinces of China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) to compare the effects of AI, relative income (RI) and income aspirations (IA) on individual well-being in China. The results of a hierarchical regression analysis found that, compared to AI and RI, IA explained more variation in well-being. These findings highlight the importance of IA for well-being among the Chinese.

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“…The majority of these studies focus on urban residents (Appleton and Song 2008;Smyth et al 2010;Wang and VanderWeele 2011;Jiang et al 2012;Huang et al 2015;Qian and Qian 2015;Akee et al 2015). But there have also been a few studies that examine the determinants of happiness for rural residents (Knight et al 2009) and rural-urban migrants (Gao and Smyth 2011;Knight and Gunatilaka 2010b;Nielsen et al 2010;Akay et al 2012).…”

Section: The Traditional Focus In Economics Has Been To Use Indicatormentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Lee

Zhao

2015

Soc Indic Res

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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

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Relative Income, Relative Assets, and Happiness in Urban China

Cited by 61 publications

References 30 publications

Does satisfactory neighbourhood environment lead to a satisfying life? An investigation of the association between neighbourhood environment and life satisfaction in Beijing

Does satisfactory neighbourhood environment lead to a satisfying life? An investigation of the association between neighbourhood environment and life satisfaction in Beijing

Which types of income matter most for well‐being in China: Absolute, relative or income aspirations?

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

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