Development For Happiness

For a long time, the income-based economic indicators have been seen as the major indicators of the measuring welfare, and all the economic policies which improve the social welfare of all and promote the development mostly are based on the long-term economic growth. Until1974, Easterlin found the "happiness-income paradox ", which is that the happiness level does not appear to increase with increasing income in developed countries, and the happiness and problems associated with re-return to the economists'research horizons. However, the economics of subjective well-being focus on the problem of income-oriented factors, and the subjective psychological factors are insufficient attention. The paths of getting happiness do not only include the material wealth, the quality of education and other objective paths, also containing the personal relationship needs, capacity needs, self-realization, the meaning of life and goals subjective paths. And, with the upgrading of material living standards, the subjective paths are more important, even more than the effect of the objective paths Therefore, in this paper, based on the objective reality of happiness paradox income, we put the objective factors and subjective psychological factors of affecting our happiness into the model, researching the longitudinal happiness-income paradox and the horizontal paradox of happiness-income from the three aspects of micro-development, macro-economic development and urban and rural social structure.This paper is mainly to expand it from three aspects:First, studying the impact of individual development to happiness. On the one hand, the microscopic individual income, education, health and other objective factors, and the psychological needs of the individual microscopic subjective psychological factors are important factors that influence subjective well-being of individuals. On the other hand these factors are likely to be closely related with the development of their parents in their childhood. Based on this, we use the data of China General Social Survey in2008, studying the direct effect of childhood family subjective well-being, as well as tee indirect effects of childhood family on the happiness through individual development with recursive multivariate probit model. The empirical results show that childhood family was not only the directly factors of affecting the individual's subjective well-being, but also through individual income, educational and psychological needs and other factors indirectly affecting subjective well-being of the individual. Visible, the indirect effects of the individual to the happiness are likely to be the important causes of happiness income paradox, so the paper provides a new perspective and methods to research the happiness-income paradox.Second, Studying the impact of macroeconomic development to happiness. The main purpose of this part is to explain the happiness-income paradox from the macro variable perspective, such as the income distribution, the people's livelihood investment and so on. Through using Chinese General Social Survey data and relevant macro data in2003-2008, we analyze the effect of economic growth, income distribution, the government financial expenditure on education, medical treatment, social security to the happiness using Order Probit model. Empirical analysis concluded that economic growth, the accumulation of material wealth is the premise and foundation of achieving SWB. However, economic growth and the income level significantly affect the residents of subjective well-being, but the coefficient is smaller, while improving the relative income position, equitable distribution of income and livelihood national investment in education, health care and social security can significantly improve the residents' SWB.Third, studying the impact of urban and rural social structure to happiness. The main purpose of this part is to explain the happiness-income paradox in the China's urban and rural social structure.With the rapid growth of China, the urban-rural gap of income, education, health care, social security and other physical life conditions are widening, but some empirical analyses show that, the subjective well-being of rural residents is stronger than the urban residents'. Putting the paradox fact into the dual social structure between urban and rural areas, and using the Order Probit model, the paper has made an empirical analysis based on the China's general social survey (CGSS) data. The results shows that the happiness paradox between urban and rural residents mainly comes from the different mindset of the urban and rural residents, and among the urban and rural residents that whose absolute income reach or exceed the71.6%of average level, other conditions including mindsets being controlled same, the subjective wellbeing of rural residents is stronger than the urban residents'.The above analysis enlightens us: First, the happiness-income paradox does not mean we should abandon the economic growth, but getting a fair chance to all kinds of resources, improving the social security system based on the economic growth, realizing the overall coordination of development of economic, social, environment and the human; Secondly, in the process of promoting the sustainable development of our country, we should focus on improving the level of education of individual microscopic, improving their health, and paying close attention to their subjective psychological; third, because the development status of parents has an important impact on the development of micro-individual, and thus in the implementation of policies related to welfare, we should pay attention to the objective and subjective psychological well-being of children. Finally, industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization just are the paths of development rather than development purposes, and the urbanization may be a process of building the "the besieged city of happiness", going against the basic purpose of development. As for the ultimate purpose of development, the urbanization is not the only path of development, and increasing rural residents' income and providing equal public service for rural residents can enhance the well-being of people in the countryside.