Measurement and Analysis of Well-Being in Developed Regions in China

The need for studies on well-being in China has increased in recent years. However, women’s well-being is an area that has not received adequate attention. The purpose of this research is to have a clear understanding of how well women have compared with men on the whole in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong — the three developed provinces in China. To achieve this, we computed and compared the well-being of 4,367 women and men by utilizing the latest survey data of 2009 from the Chinese Family Panel Studies. We have measured well-being by computing multidimensional indices which are dependent on five domains: material and educational well-being, health, behavior and risks, family and peer relationships, and subjective well-being. These domains were aggregated either with the same weights or with different weights estimated by the principal component analysis. The findings suggest that, generally, men have a higher level of well-being than women in all these three provinces in China. Also, the domains of behavior and risks as well as material and educational well-being contribute most to individuals’ well-being. Furthermore, women score much lower than men do in subjective well-being.