Social Support and Psychological Well-Being Under Social Change in Urban and Rural China

Huijun Liu, Shuzhuo Li, Qunying Xiao () and M. Feldman

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2014, vol. 119, issue 2, 979-996

Abstract: The economic reforms of the past two decades have initiated a major social transition in China, characterized by unprecedented social mobility and stratification. Meanwhile, the privatization of health care has increased costs to the consumer. While such changes would logically affect individuals’ psychological well-being, little attention has been paid to this association. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey (2005), this paper looks at the relationships between social changes and the psychological well-being of individuals in both urban and rural areas, as well as the role of social support in Chinese society. We find that an increasing health-care burden is significantly associated with individuals’ psychological well-being, especially in rural China. Perceived social status, its change over time and its comparison with perceived status of peers, are also significantly correlated with psychological well-being both in rural and urban China. Social support has a protective function for psychological well-being across different samples, and also compensates for the negative association between increasing health-care burden and psychological well-being, but it strengthens relative deprivation during social change on psychological well-being in rural areas. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Keywords: Psychological well-being; Social change; Social support; Health-care cost; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11205-013-0534-1

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