Open AccessRelative Income and Subjective Well-Being of Urban Residents in China
Author(s) -
Jichao Wang,
Wei Yan,
Jie Zhang
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of family and economic issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.711
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1573-3475
pISSN - 1058-0476
DOI - 10.1007/s10834-019-09636-0
Subject(s) - happiness , subjective well being , china , demographic economics , general social survey , logistic regression , relative deprivation , psychology , socioeconomics , econometrics , geography , economics , social psychology , statistics , mathematics , archaeology
The purposes of this study are to examine subjective well-being and to test its correlation with social reference and self-expectations of urban residents in China. Data are obtained from the 2015 Chinese General Social Survey, and we focus on urban residents (N=4,857). Because the dependent variable is a sequence variable, the ordered logit model is used for data analysis. We find that absolute income remains an important factor in determining people's subjective well-being. We also find that when relative income factors are included, the correlation between absolute income and subjective well-being is reduced. This suggests that the subjective well-being of urban residents is influenced not only by absolute income itself, but also - more importantly - by relative income based on social comparison and self-expectations. These findings have implications for the formulation of social policies to improve citizens' happiness.