A Tale of Three Chinese Societies: The Quality of Life and Well-Being of Chinese People in a Changing World

Excerpt

Quality of life (QOL) and well-being (WB) as research topics have received much attention in the Western literature. Researchers in different disciplines, including medicine, nursing, rehabilitation science, psychology, sociology, social work, business and philosophy have conducted research in the broad fields of quality of life and well-being. Nevertheless, the notions of quality of life and well-being are different, though they share some conceptual overlaps. Quality of life refers to mainly the social aspects of life that go beyond economic life of people in a society. Historically, because the social aspect of life is the major focus of concern, the measures involved were aptly denoted as “social indicators”. It is a broad measure of life in general that include its economic, social, environmental, health, and cultural aspects. What aspects or parameters of life should be included in the quality of life depends very much on how important these aspects or parameters are regarded as constitutive of a good life, and is highly dependent on how a society’s values and priorities. Well-being of a country refers to its people’s perception of life satisfaction about various domains of living. When the concept is used in this way, it means the subjective well-being of people of a country. It is subjective because the perception is expressed as a personal subjective judgment of life satisfaction. Subjective well-being can be measured by either the prevalence of positive affect with respect to different domains, or the extent of fulfillment of life goals or values of people, depending on whether well-being is conceived hedonically or in the eudaimonic manner. …