Relationship between education and well-being in China

Sijia Liu () and Almas Heshmati ()
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Sijia Liu: Jönköping University

Journal of Social and Economic Development, 2023, vol. 25, issue 1, No 8, 123-151

Abstract: Abstract Well-being is often quantitatively measured based on individuals’ income or health situation but the relationship between education and well-being has not been fully investigated. It is also important to compare well-being using different individual characteristics especially gender. This paper analyzes well-being using a unique dataset from the Chinese General Social Surveys in 2012, 2013, and 2015. Two measures of well-being are used: self-assessed unidimensional subjective well-being and parametrically estimated multidimensional objective well-being. Objective well-being is a composite parametric index with contributions from different domains of education influenced by identity, capability, and material well-being. These help in understanding the differences between and compare subjective and objective well-being. The results of our descriptive and regression analysis suggests that the multidimensional well-being index differs from subjective well-being in ranking individuals grouped by important common characteristics. These differences are captured by our study which helps to broaden the measurement and analysis of the multidimensionality of the well-being index. Education influences well-being positively, conditional on controlling for identity, capability, material and marital status, and Confucianism. Investments in education and female empowerment which target well-being measures will help reduce the dimensionality of the gender gap in rural China, in particular those attributed to Confucianism.

Keywords: Education; Multidimensional well-being; Principal component analysis; Chinese females (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C38 C43 D60 H75 I30 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s40847-022-00193-1

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