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Does Economic Development Affect Life Satisfaction? A Spatial–Temporal Contextual Analysis in China

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Abstract

Social context affects people’s life satisfaction because it provides a natural reference for evaluating their own socioeconomic standing. Given their reference role, social contexts operationalized by space versus time may have very different implications. Our hypothesis is that spatial variation in economic development has little impact on life satisfaction as individuals living in different locales are unlikely to experience this variation personally, but that short-term temporal changes in economic development, on the other hand, do have an impact, as individuals in a given locale experience these changes directly. These two very different implications of spatial versus temporal social contexts are tested with an analysis of repeated survey data in 60 counties of China from 2005 to 2010. The results show that life satisfaction does not vary much with regional differences in economic development but responds positively to the local level of economic development over time. That is, the contextual effects of economic development vary greatly depending on how social context is operationalized. Temporal context matters far more than regional context where individuals’ life satisfaction is concerned.

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Notes

  1. Real family income = (Measured family income)/(CPI of the county)%.

  2. Real GDP per capita = (Nominal GDP per capita)/CPI%.

  3. Annual growth rate of GDP per capita = \(\sqrt[ 5]{{ ( {\text{GDP per capita in 2010)/(GDP per capita in 2005)}}}} - 1\)

  4. Annual change in life satisfaction = (mean life satisfaction in 2010 − mean life satisfaction in 2005)/5.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a youth project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71101145) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (GH11041).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China

    Jie Zhou

  2. Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Yu Xie

  3. Center for Social Research, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Yu Xie

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  1. Jie Zhou
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Correspondence to Jie Zhou.

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Zhou, J., Xie, Y. Does Economic Development Affect Life Satisfaction? A Spatial–Temporal Contextual Analysis in China. J Happiness Stud 17, 643–658 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-015-9612-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-015-9612-1

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