IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/ceprxx/v04y2015i01ns1793969015500065.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measurement and Analysis of Well-Being in Developed Regions in China

Author

Listed:
  • Almas Heshmati

    (Department of Economics, Sogang University, 35 Baekbeom-ro (Sinsu-dong #1), Mapo-gu, Seoul 121-742, Korea)

  • Biwei Su

    (#x2020;Department of Food and Resource Economics, College of Life Science and Biotechnology, Korea University, East Building, Anam-dong Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 136-713, Korea)

  • Seon-Ae Kim

    (#x2020;Department of Food and Resource Economics, College of Life Science and Biotechnology, Korea University, East Building, Anam-dong Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 136-713, Korea)

Abstract

The need for studies on well-being in China has increased in recent years. However, women’s well-being is an area that has not received adequate attention. The purpose of this research is to have a clear understanding of how well women have compared with men on the whole in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong — the three developed provinces in China. To achieve this, we computed and compared the well-being of 4,367 women and men by utilizing the latest survey data of 2009 from the Chinese Family Panel Studies. We have measured well-being by computing multidimensional indices which are dependent on five domains: material and educational well-being, health, behavior and risks, family and peer relationships, and subjective well-being. These domains were aggregated either with the same weights or with different weights estimated by the principal component analysis. The findings suggest that, generally, men have a higher level of well-being than women in all these three provinces in China. Also, the domains of behavior and risks as well as material and educational well-being contribute most to individuals’ well-being. Furthermore, women score much lower than men do in subjective well-being.

Suggested Citation

  • Almas Heshmati & Biwei Su & Seon-Ae Kim, 2015. "Measurement and Analysis of Well-Being in Developed Regions in China," China Economic Policy Review (CEPR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(01), pages 1-22, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:ceprxx:v:04:y:2015:i:01:n:s1793969015500065
    DOI: 10.1142/S1793969015500065
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1793969015500065
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S1793969015500065?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moffitt, Robert, 1993. "Identification and estimation of dynamic models with a time series of repeated cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1-2), pages 99-123, September.
    2. Frey, Bruno S & Stutzer, Alois, 2000. "Happiness, Economy and Institutions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 918-938, October.
    3. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2009. "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 190-225, August.
    4. KNIGHT, John & SONG, Lina & GUNATILAKA, Ramani, 2009. "Subjective well-being and its determinants in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 635-649, December.
    5. Biwei Su & Almas Heshmati, 2013. "Analysis Of The Determinants Of Income And Income Gap Between Urban And Rural China," China Economic Policy Review (CEPR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 2(01), pages 1-29.
    6. Verbeek, Marno & Nijman, Theo, 1992. "Can Cohort Data Be Treated as Genuine Panel Data?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 9-23.
    7. Archibugi, Daniele & Coco, Alberto, 2004. "A New Indicator of Technological Capabilities for Developed and Developing Countries (ArCo)," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 629-654, April.
    8. Jinjun Xue & Chuliang Luo & Shi Li, 2014. "Globalization, Liberalization And Income Inequality: The Case Of China," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 59(01), pages 1-21.
    9. Guifu Chen & Shigeyuki Hamori, 2014. "Do Chinese Employers Discriminate Against Females When Hiring Employees?," SpringerBriefs in Economics, in: Rural Labor Migration, Discrimination, and the New Dual Labor Market in China, edition 127, chapter 0, pages 39-51, Springer.
    10. Macpherson, David A & Hirsch, Barry T, 1995. "Wages and Gender Composition: Why Do Women's Jobs Pay Less?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(3), pages 426-471, July.
    11. Bruno S. Frey, 2018. "Economics of Happiness," SpringerBriefs in Economics, Springer, number 978-3-319-75807-7, October.
    12. -, 2004. "Understanding poverty from a gender perspective," Asuntos de Género 5926, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    13. Deon Filmer & Lant Pritchett, 2001. "Estimating Wealth Effects Without Expenditure Data—Or Tears: An Application To Educational Enrollments In States Of India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(1), pages 115-132, February.
    14. Pierre-Richard Agénor, 2004. "Does globalization hurt the poor?," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 21-51, March.
    15. Deaton, A. & Zaidi, S., 1999. "Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates for Welfare Analysis," Papers 192, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Development Studies.
    16. Almas Heshmati & JongEun Oh, 2006. "Alternative Composite Lisbon Development Strategy Indices: A Comparison of EU, USA, Japan and Korea," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 3(2), pages 131-170, December.
    17. Verbeek, Marno & Nijman, Theo, 1993. "Minimum MSE estimation of a regression model with fixed effects from a series of cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1-2), pages 125-136, September.
    18. Axel Dreher, 2006. "Does globalization affect growth? Evidence from a new index of globalization," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1091-1110.
    19. Gareth Davey & Zhenghui Chen & Anna Lau, 2009. "‘Peace in a Thatched Hut—that is Happiness’: Subjective Wellbeing Among Peasants in Rural China," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 239-252, April.
    20. Gourieroux, Christian & Monfort, Alain, 1993. "Simulation-based inference : A survey with special reference to panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1-2), pages 5-33, September.
    21. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:10:y:2008:i:14:p:1-17 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Almas Heshmati & Arno Tausch & Chemen S. J. Bajalan, 2008. "Measurement and Analysis of Child Well-Being in Middle and High Income Countries," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 5(2), pages 187-249, December.
    23. Appleton, Simon & Song, Lina, 2008. "Life Satisfaction in Urban China: Components and Determinants," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 2325-2340, November.
    24. Kang, Sang Mok, 2002. "A sensitivity analysis of the Korean composite environmental index," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2-3), pages 159-174, December.
    25. Yu, Mei-Yu & Sarri, Rosemary, 1997. "Women's health status and gender inequality in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 45(12), pages 1885-1898, December.
    26. Farhad Noorbakhsh, 1998. "The human development index: some technical issues and alternative indices," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(5), pages 589-605.
    27. Stanislav Kolenikov & Gustavo Angeles, 2009. "Socioeconomic Status Measurement With Discrete Proxy Variables: Is Principal Component Analysis A Reliable Answer?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(1), pages 128-165, March.
    28. Ǻke Blomqvist & Jiwei Qian, 2008. "Health System Reform In China: An Assessment Of Recent Trends," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 53(01), pages 5-26.
    29. Deaton, Angus, 1992. "Understanding Consumption," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288244.
    30. *Unicef, 2007. "Child Poverty in Perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries," Papers inreca07/19, Innocenti Report Card.
    31. Hannum, Emily & Wang, Meiyan, 2006. "Geography and educational inequality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 253-265.
    32. Knight, John & Gunatilaka, Ramani, 2010. "Great Expectations? The Subjective Well-being of Rural-Urban Migrants in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 113-124, January.
    33. David McKenzie, 2005. "Measuring inequality with asset indicators," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(2), pages 229-260, June.
    34. Verbeek, M.J.C.M. & Nijman, T.E., 1992. "Can cohort data be treated as genuine panel data?," Other publications TiSEM d4eada8f-b91c-4fe7-a58c-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    35. Heshmati Almas, 2006. "Measurement of a Multidimensional Index of Globalization," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-30, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sijia Liu & Almas Heshmati, 2023. "Relationship between education and well-being in China," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 25(1), pages 123-151, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baseem Al-Athwari & Jorn Altmann & Almas Heshmati, 2013. "A Conceptual Model and Methodology for Evaluating E-Infrastructure Deployment and Its Application to OECD and MENA Countries," TEMEP Discussion Papers 2013102, Seoul National University; Technology Management, Economics, and Policy Program (TEMEP), revised Apr 2013.
    2. Tausch, Arno, 2008. "On the world market trajectory of 21 major book publishing companies in globalization and European studies in 100+ countries. From “Amsterdam University Press” via “Palgrave” and “Nova Science Publish," MPRA Paper 9613, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Tausch, Arno, 2009. "Schaufenster Griechenland – was kann aus dem aktuellen Debakel für das soziale Europa gelernt werden? [Showcase Greece – what can be learnt from the current debacle for a Social Europe?]]," MPRA Paper 14251, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Tausch, Arno & Heshmati, Almas, 2014. "Testing an EU-Candidate's Place on the Maps of Global Economic, Political and Social Values: The Case of Turkey," IZA Discussion Papers 8163, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Carlsson, Fredrik & Lampi, Elina & Li, Wanxin & Martinsson, Peter, 2011. "Subjective well-being among preadolescents - Evidence from urban China," Working Papers in Economics 500, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    6. Tausch, Arno & Heshmati, Almas, 2009. "Asabiyya: Re-Interpreting Value Change in Globalized Societies," IZA Discussion Papers 4459, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Jiayuan Li, 2016. "Why Economic Growth did not Translate into Increased Happiness: Preliminary Results of a Multilevel Modeling of Happiness in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 241-263, August.
    8. Verbeek, Marno & Vella, Francis, 2005. "Estimating dynamic models from repeated cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 127(1), pages 83-102, July.
    9. Andrew E. Clark & Claudia Senik, 2010. "Will GDP growth increase happiness in developing countries?," PSE Working Papers halshs-00564985, HAL.
    10. Xavier d'Haultfoeuille & Stefan Hoderlein & Yuya Sasaki, 2013. "Nonlinear difference-in-differences in repeated cross sections with continuous treatments," CeMMAP working papers CWP40/13, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    11. Appleton, Simon & Song, Lina, 2008. "Life Satisfaction in Urban China: Components and Determinants," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 2325-2340, November.
    12. Patrick Ward, 2014. "Measuring the Level and Inequality of Wealth: An Application to China," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 613-635, December.
    13. Randell, Heather, 2016. "The short-term impacts of development-induced displacement on wealth and subjective well-being in the Brazilian Amazon," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 385-400.
    14. Tausch, Arno, 2015. "Towards new maps of global human values, based on World Values Survey (6) data," MPRA Paper 63349, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Carlsson, Fredrik & Lampi, Elina & Li, Wanxin & Martinsson, Peter, 2014. "Subjective well-being among preadolescents and their parents – Evidence of intergenerational transmission of well-being from urban China," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 11-18.
    16. Tamvada, Jagannadha Pawan, 2010. "The Dynamics of Self-employment in a Developing Country: Evidence from India," MPRA Paper 20042, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Hai‐Anh H. Dang & Peter F. Lanjouw, 2023. "Measuring Poverty Dynamics with Synthetic Panels Based on Repeated Cross Sections," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(3), pages 599-622, June.
    18. Jiayuan Li & John Raine, 2014. "The Time Trend of Life Satisfaction in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 116(2), pages 409-427, April.
    19. Xiaoyan Lei & Yan Shen & James P. Smith & Guangsu Zhou, 2018. "Life satisfaction in China and consumption and income inequalities," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 75-95, March.
    20. Paul J. Devereux, 2007. "Small-sample bias in synthetic cohort models of labor supply," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(4), pages 839-848.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wsi:ceprxx:v:04:y:2015:i:01:n:s1793969015500065. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/cepr/cepr.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.