An Economic Study For Subjective Well-Being

For Chinese social situation, the constructing of harmonious society and practising the scientific development idea require us to change the traditional development thought. It also needs to improve citizens' well-being in the process of developing economy. As the ultimate objective of human development, well-being has not been concerned in economics for a long time. After establishing the "Easterlin Paradox" by Easterlin (1974), this situation was improved and well-being also attracted the researching interest from many researchers.When examining Easterlin Paradox, some researchers found that higer income can lead to higher subjective well-being (SWB) from their samples, whereas other researchers established the contrary relationship from different samples. It probably means that the specifical economic circumstance may determine the different relationship between income and SWB. Since income has different effect on SWB under different circumstances, how to evaluate Chinese citizens' SWB in the process of social transition? Which factors determines citizens' SWB level in China? What is the micro-mechanism between these factors and SWB? Employing the SWB data from urban Wuhan in 2007, this dissertation will discuss these questions in detail.Specifically, based on the the SWB data from urban Wuhan in 2007, the dissertation studies the determinants of SWB. Meanwhile, from the particular backgrounds of social transition in China, it also considers the relative problems of SWB form the lens of political economy.Chapter one is introduction. In this part it mainly introduces the backgrounds and signification for this study. Simultaneously, it also demonstrates the main researching content and means. Particularly, as an analytical base, in this part the dissertation also clarifies the content of well-being.Chapter two reviews the existing literature. First, this chapter introduces and reviews the existing literature about the determinants of SWB from the following three levels:(1) personality and demographical factors; (2) economic factors; (3) political factors. Second, it also concludes the researching literature about Chinese citizens'SWB. Finally, combining the above introduction and review, this chapter summarizes the agreement and remaining issues in the existing literature.As a theoretical base, chapter three introduces the evolving process of SWB research in economics. This chapter mainly answers the following three questions:(1) discussing the concept of well-being under the analytical circumstance of this dissertation; (2) explaining the importance of well-being for human being from the practice; (3) demonstrating the evolving process of well-being and economics.Chapter four and chapter five are the main part of this dissertation. In these two chapters, we try to solve two problems:(1) according to the data about urban Wuhan in 2007, chapter four examines the "Easterlin Paraox"; (2) from the demographical level, chapter five surveys the determinants of SWB. The main conclusions in chapter four indicate that it has a positive effect on SWB when the econometrical model only considers absolute income. However, if the econometrical model includes the relative income, the positive effect from absolute income will decrease and relative income will implement a negative effect on SWB. These conclusions imply that we can not restrain our research in absolute income to explain "Easterlin Paraox". Chapter five mainly surveys the relationships among age, education, job satisfaction and SWB. Based on the conclusions, there has a U-shape relationship between age and SWB. It reveals that SWB firstly decrease and then increase with the increasing of age. As far as education concerned, the results imply that education has a negative effect on SWB. Since education can create both productive value and consuming value for us, therefore, for understanding this result, it needs us to consider these two factors. The results also indicate that the spill-over model is the best model to analysis the relationship between job satisfaction and SWB. From chapter five, we also establish a positive relationship between job satisfaction and SWB. And this positive effect decreases with the increasing of age.From the lens of political economy, chapter six clarifies that GDP can not really measure the performance of economic development, especially under the backgrounds of social transition in China. GDP growth can improve the physical living standard of human being, however, we can not ignore the latent various problems in this process. Based on this consideration, this chapter argues that we should develop a happiness index. Such an index should reflect the real situation of various levels in our life.The last part of the dissertation is conclusions and perspectives for SWB research. This part mainly sums up the researching results in this dissertation. It also analyses the drawbacks and proposes the future researching issues.