Aspirations, Adaptation and Subjective Well-Being of Rural-Urban Migrants in China

John Knight and Ramani Gunatilaka

No 381, Economics Series Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics

Abstract: This research is among the first to link the literatures on migration and on subjective well-being in developing countries. It poses the question: why do rural-urban migrant households settled in urban China have an average happiness score lower than that of rural households? It examines the hypothesis that migrants have false expectations because they cannot foresee how their aspirations will adapt to their new situation, and draws on research on both psychology and sociology. Estimated happiness functions and decomposition analyses, based on a 2002 national household survey, suggest that their high aspirations in relation to achievement, influenced by their new reference groups, make for unhappiness. The evidence is consistent with the hypothesis.

Keywords: Rural-Urban Migration; Subjective Well-Being; Happiness; Relative Deprivation; Aspirations; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I32 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-dev, nep-hap, nep-mig, nep-soc and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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