Subjective well-being among preadolescents and their parents – Evidence of intergenerational transmission of well-being from urban China

Highlights

• Parents’ and their children's levels of subjective well-being are significantly correlated.

• Factors affecting subjective well-being of parents and their preadolescents are not the same.

• Relations with parents and friends are important for the well-being of preadolescents.

• High income, educational attainment or good health, increase the likelihood that the parent is happier than the child.

Abstract

This paper examines whether intergenerational transmission of happiness exists in China between preadolescents and their parents, and what factors are correlated with subjective well-being among them. We find that parents’ and their children's levels of subjective well-being are indeed significantly correlated, yet the factors that affect their well-being differ. Higher income, being a female, higher education, good health, and not being divorced result in higher well-being among the parents. Preadolescents’ well-being is instead determined by different kinds of interactions with peers and parents, where being bullied or not is one of the most important factors.

Introduction

The amount of research on subjective well-being and what influences people's well-being beyond the contribution of income is increasing (e.g., MacKerron, 2011). However, most of this research is exclusively related to adults. In this paper, we focus on well-being among preadolescents in an area undergoing rapid transition, i.e., Shenzhen, China. Shenzhen was the first special economic zone for economic reform¹ in China and has experienced massive growth in wealth over the last three decades (e.g., Chubarov and Brooker, 2013, Liu et al., 2007). However, this development has resulted in a more uneven income distribution, as well as privatization of social services. The objective of the present paper is to use a tailor-made survey to investigate what explains subjective well-being among Chinese preadolescents and the relationship between parents’ and their children's subjective well-being in Shenzhen.

Most studies on subjective well-being have focused on Western European countries and North America, and hence it is of interest to investigate what affects subjective well-being in other cultures. Studying China is of particular interest for many reasons besides the obvious one, that one in five persons in the world lives in China. China is undergoing rapid changes – changes that are occurring much faster than in the previously studied Western countries – and this may affect people and society in many ways. The rapidly growing number of subjective well-being studies in China using adult respondents is an indication of the importance of understanding what factors affect well-being (e.g., Akay et al., 2012, Appleton and Song, 2008, Brown and Tierney, 2009, Cheung and Leung, 2004, Knight and Gunatilaka, 2009a, Knight and Gunatilaka, 2009b, Knight and Gunatilaka, 2010, Knight et al., 2009, Nielsen et al., 2010, Smyth et al., 2008). The findings in these studies have been similar to what has generally been found in Western countries: higher absolute income, and being healthy, married, and employed, all have a positive and significant impact on subjective well-being. At the same time, there is evidence that the average stated happiness level has declined despite the massive increase in material living standard (Brockmann et al., 2009). China's industrialization and urbanization processes have generated families with both parents working and neighborhoods and communities with residents who have migrated from somewhere else and who may not even greet each other. This has transformed the environments in which children grow up, including the nature of interactions between adults and children. From a policy perspective, happiness has become an important issue in China. At the opening of the National People's Congress in 2011, former premier Wen Jiabao announced that happiness, in addition to GDP, is a yardstick to measure growth. Thus, China is following other countries, such as France² and the UK, in showing an emerging interest in happiness.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the previous studies on subjective well-being of children and our model framework, Section 3 presents the sample characteristics and results, and Section 4 concludes the paper.