Measurement of relative welfare poverty and its impact on happiness in China: Evidence from CGSS

Jinxian Wang, Chen Wang, Sihao Li and Zhi Luo

China Economic Review, 2021, vol. 69, issue C

Abstract: Individual or household income has been the conventional yardstick of poverty. Presently, non-income factors are universally accepted as measures of poverty. Attention on the multiple dimensions of poverty and their policy implications has been growing in the past 20 years. However, few studies have analyzed relative multidimensional poverty, especially in China. Moreover, the relationship between relative welfare poverty and happiness has been rarely studied, particularly given that the decline of poverty seemed not bringing a significant increase in happiness in China. This research gap is noteworthy because enhancing the subjective well-being of the people is crucial to a nation's sustainable economic development. On the basis of the micro-level data from China General Social Survey, this study puts forward a welfare approach to analyzing the relative multidimensional poverty and then determines the link between relative welfare poverty and individual happiness. Our results show that 1) relative welfare poverty has not declined significantly and 2) there is a significantly happiness-reducing effect of relative welfare poverty.

Keywords: Relative welfare poverty; Multidimensional poverty; Happiness; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 I31 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:69:y:2021:i:c:s1043951x2100105x

DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2021.101687

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