The Inequality Of Residents’Quality Of Life In Northeast China And Analysis Of Its Causes

Quality of life (QOL) issues are highly concerned among Chinesegovernments and citizens in today’s society. They are also very importantscientific issues which need to be urgently addressed in the process ofestablishing a comprehensively well-off society. Building a moderatelyprosperous society requires the regional development to be QOL-orientedand the government to take protecting and improving people’s quality oflife as the starting point and ending point. As an old industrial base, QOLissues in Northeast China have both their universality and particularity.The “heavy industrialization” of industrial structure and the “productionprecedes livelihood” mode of development led to the emergence of manysocial and QOL issues and have been an important bottleneck for socialstability and sustainable economic development. Given the real needs ofQOL development in Northeast China and based on the quantification ofresidents’ quality of life, we analyzed the inequality of quality of life andits causes. We further proposed some suggestions for policy considerationwith a view to provide useful reference to promote the residents’ qualityof life in Northeast China.This thesis is divided into four parts. The first part reviewed the basicconcepts and theories in literature related to QOL and defined the conceptof QOL. After that, we provided a theoretical basis for this thesis fueledby learning from regional and rural development theories. The secondpart analyzed the spatial disparity and its evolutionary characteristics ofresidents’ quality of life in Northeast China. We also studied the causeswhich are resiponsible for the QOL disparity in terms of economicstrength, social security expenditure, fixed asset investment and industrial structure. The third part set Dehui city as an example to investigate thethe urban-rural inequality of residents’ quality of life in Northeast China,and we further studied the causes of this inequality fueled by analyzingthe constrainting factors of agricultural income growth, urban biasedeconomic policies, urban-rural differences in consumption concept andconsumption environment, urban-rural disparities in public services. Thefourth part set forth some suggestions for impoving residents’ quality oflife in views of transformation of economic development, coordination ofregional and rural development, improving the urban and rural socialsecurity systems, rural economic reform and policy adjustments andequalization of basic public services.