China has experienced rapid economic growth over the past decades. Materially speaking, Chinese life has become better and better. Psychologically, have Chinese become happier and happier? This remains a question that has perplexed scholars from various fields. Although numerous studies have been done, the findings are inconclusive and confusing. While cross-sectional analyses consistently reflect that higher income is associated with higher happiness, cross-temporal studies have produced mixed findings. The question remains: Does economic growth raise happiness in China?

 Recently, a research team led by Dr. CAI Huajian from the Center for Personality and Social Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted a comprehensive reexamination on how Chinese happiness has changed over the past decades and the potential role of economic growth. They found an upward trend of Chinese happiness since 1990; Moreover, economic growth is the Granger cause of the increase in Chinese happiness.

The comprehensive reexamination used the largest body of data from diverse sources. Specifically, in Study 1, they used all available survey data covering from 1990 to 2018 and demonstrated a significant quadratic U-shaped trend and a rising tendency (Figure 1). In Study 2, they conducted a cross-temporal meta-analysis on all published studies from 2001 to 2019 and found that Chinese happiness manifested a linear rising trend (Figure 2), though this trend was more salient in the community sample than in the student one. In both studies, economic growth is beneficial for Chinese happiness even after controlling for shifts in income inequality, unemployment and social insurance. Most importantly, economic growth substantially contributes to the increase in Chinese happiness.

The research provides strong support that economic growth has raised happiness in China since 1990, particularly since 2001. Economic growth is beneficial for Chinese happiness

The research entitled “Does economic growth raise happiness in China? A comprehensive reexamination” was published on May 5, 2022 in Social Psychological and Personality Science. This work is supported by the National Social Science Fund of China.

Fig. 1 U-shaped trend. Image by Dr. Yang Ziyan.   Fig. 2 A linear rising trend . Image by Dr. Yang Ziyan.

CONTACT
Ms. LIU Chen
Institute of Psychology Chinese Academy of Sciences
Beijing 100101, China.
E-mail: liuc@psych.ac.cn