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Where your heart belongs to shapes how you feel about yourself: Migration, social comparison and subjective well‐being in China
Author(s) -
Liu Ye,
Pan Zhuolin,
Liu Yuqi,
Chen Hongsheng,
Li Zhigang
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
population, space and place
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.398
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1544-8452
pISSN - 1544-8444
DOI - 10.1002/psp.2336
Subject(s) - china , social hierarchy , social psychology , subjective well being , psychology , context (archaeology) , dual (grammatical number) , social status , demographic economics , sociology , geography , economics , archaeology , happiness , art , social science , literature
This study uses a large‐scale and multicity survey dataset to examine the relationship between objective socio‐economic status, perceived social status (PSS) and subjective well‐being (SWB) among China's internal migrants living in large cities. It particularly focuses on how migrants' dual frame of reference and their intention to settle in the destination shape their PSS and SWB. Results show that migrants' PSS mediates the relationship between their objective socio‐economic status and SWB. The presence of friends, relatives and colleagues in the destination city outweighs that of those left behind in the homeplace when migrants evaluate their standings in the social hierarchy. Migrants with an intention to settle in the host city rely more on social comparison with peers in the destination city than on comparison with those left in the place of origin. This study enhances our understanding of migrants' SWB in the Chinese context by empirically testing migration theories regarding social comparison and by considering migrants' socio‐psychological diversification.