Despite its unprecedented growth in output per capita in the last two decades, China has essentially followed the life satisfaction trajectory of the central and eastern European transition countries—a U-shaped swing and a nil or declining trend. There is no evidence of an increase in life satisfaction of the magnitude that might have been expected to result from the fourfold improvement in the level of per capita consumption that has occurred. As in the European countries, in China the trend and U-shaped pattern appear to be related to a pronounced rise in unemployment followed by a mild decline, and an accompanying dissolution of the social safety net along with growing income inequality. The burden of worsening life satisfaction in China has fallen chiefly on the lowest socioeconomic groups. An initially highly egalitarian distribution of life satisfaction has been replaced by an increasingly unequal one, with decreasing life satisfaction in persons in the bottom third of the income distribution and increasing life satisfaction in those in the top third.

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China’s life satisfaction, 1990–2010

The economics of happiness, or subjective well being, is an expanding field, with a growing number of applied papers reporting empirical associations between happiness and other variables. This paper takes a broad view of the topic, aiming to provide an outline of the literature in relation to happiness economics' origins, definitions, theory, methods, applications, critiques, relations with other areas of economic research, political and policy connections, and promising directions for future inquiry.

Happiness economics from 35,000 feet

Cultural Evolution argues that people's values and behavior are shaped by the degree to which survival is secure; it was precarious for most of history, which encouraged heavy emphasis on group solidarity, rejection of outsiders, and obedience to strong leaders. For under extreme scarcity, xenophobia is realistic: if there is just enough land to support one tribe and another tribe tries to claim it, survival may literally be a choice between Us and Them. Conversely, high levels of existential security encourage openness to change, diversity, and new ideas. The unprecedented prosperity and security of the postwar era brought cultural change, the environmentalist movement, and the spread of democracy. But in recent decades, diminishing job security and rising inequality have led to an authoritarian reaction. Evidence from more than 100 countries demonstrates that people's motivations and behavior reflect the extent to which they take survival for granted - and that modernization changes them in roughly predictable ways. This book explains the rise of environmentalist parties, gender equality, and same-sex marriage through a new, empirically-tested version of modernization theory.

Cultural Evolution: People's Motivations are Changing, and Reshaping the World

https://gcoe.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/research/discussion/2008/pdf/gd09-131.pdf

Identity, Inequality, and Happiness: Evidence from Urban China

This paper examines the consequences of China’s dramatic socioeconomic and political transformations for individual subjective well-being (SWB) from 1990 to 2007. Although many still consider China to be a collectivist country, and some scholars have argued that collectivist factors would be important predictors of individual well-being in such a context, our analysis demonstrates that the Chinese are increasingly prioritizing individualist factors in assessments of their own happiness and life satisfaction thus substantiating descriptions of their society as increasingly individualistic. While the vast majority of quality of life studies have focused on Westerners, this study contributes findings from the unique cultural context of China. Moreover, concentration on this particular period in Chinese history offers insight into the relationship between SWB and rapid socioeconomic and political change.

The Pursuit of Happiness in China: Individualism, Collectivism, and Subjective Well-Being during China's Economic and Social Transformation*

Over the 1990–2000 decade happiness in China plummeted despite massive improvement in material living standards. This finding contradicts the notion that income growth at low living standards leads to gains, not losses, in happiness. We explain this puzzle by drawing on a specific version of relative deprivation theory, the concept of “frustrated achievers.” Our major finding is that income inequality in China became increasingly skewed towards the upper income strata, so that related to the average income the financial position of most Chinese worsened. Consequently, financial dissatisfaction rose and became an increasingly important factor in depressing happiness. Other negative feelings emerging with rapid transitions, such as anomie and disaffection, show a less depressive effect on Chinese happiness. We conclude with some speculations about the applicability of our findings to transition economies in general.

The China Puzzle: Falling Happiness in a Rising Economy

Over the 1990-2000 decade happiness in China plummeted despite massive improvement in material living standards. This finding contradicts the notion that income growth at low living standards leads to gains, not losses, in happiness. We explain this puzzle by drawing on a specific version of relative deprivation theory, the concept of "frustrated achievers." Our major finding is that income inequality in China became increasingly skewed towards the upper income strata, so that related to the average income the financial position of most Chinese worsened. Consequently, financial dissatisfaction rose and became an increasingly important factor in depressing happiness. Other negative feelings emerging with rapid transitions, such as anomie and disaffection, show a less depressive effect on Chinese happiness. We conclude with some speculations about the applicability of our findings to transition economies in general.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2391703_code2178430.pdf?abstractid=2391703&mirid=4

The innovative behavior of employees is the micro-foundation of enterprise innovation. The objective of this study was to assess the role of gender differences in the effect of interpersonal trust on employee innovation and the mediating roles of organizational commitment and knowledge-sharing. This study tested research hypotheses with a multi-group structural equation model, using data collected from 688 participants in Shanghai, China. The results showed that interpersonal trust had significant impacts on affective organizational commitment, knowledge-sharing and innovation behavior. Affective organizational commitment and knowledge-sharing mediated the effect of interpersonal trust on employee innovation. Furthermore, the direct impact of interpersonal trust on innovative behavior was significantly higher for women than for men, whereas males’ affective organizational commitment increased their knowledge-sharing behaviors. In addition, there were no significant gender differences in the effect of interpersonal trust on organizational commitment and in the effect of knowledge-sharing on innovative behavior. These results confirmed that interpersonal trust was more important for female knowledge-sharing and innovative behavior, and affective organizational commitment was more important for male knowledge-sharing.

/pdf/gender-differences-in-the-relationship-between-interpersonal-2z01m1me.pdf

Gender Differences in the Relationship between Interpersonal Trust and Innovative Behavior: The Mediating Effects of Affective Organizational Commitment and Knowledge-Sharing

Covid-19 represents a challenge for digital globalization and the digital transformation of economies. In particular, IT companies are more desperate for innovation than ever before. Inclusive leadership is based on the concept of "fully inclusive and Participation" attracting attention as a leader capable of inducing innovative behavior. And it can adapt to the independent needs of new generation employees. Currently, a large amount of literature studies inclusive leadership and its direct impact on employees' innovative behaviors. However, few studies have explored the internal mechanism of action between inclusive leadership and innovative behavior. This study investigates how inclusive leadership influences employees' innovative behavior through error management climate and self-efficacy. Taking error management climate and self-efficacy as intermediary variables, the author constructs a theoretical, conceptual model of the dual-path mechanism of inclusive leadership on employees' innovative behavior based on multiple mediating variables. The author conducts an online questionnaire survey of on-the-job employees of Chinese Internet technology companies and adopts SPSS21.0 and AMOS 24.0 to carry out an empirical analysis of the questionnaire survey data. The result shows that inclusive leadership has a significant positive impact on employees' innovative behavior, error management climate, and self-efficacy. Meanwhile, error management climate and self-efficacy also reflect the intermediary effect in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior.

The Impact of Inclusive Leadership on Employees' Innovative Behaviors in Chinese Internet Technology Companies: The Mediating Role of Error Management Climate and Self-Efficacy

Hao Yuan

Papers

The China Puzzle: Falling Happiness in a Rising Economy

The China Puzzle: Falling Happiness in a Rising Economy

Gender Differences in the Relationship between Interpersonal Trust and Innovative Behavior: The Mediating Effects of Affective Organizational Commitment and Knowledge-Sharing

The Impact of Inclusive Leadership on Employees' Innovative Behaviors in Chinese Internet Technology Companies: The Mediating Role of Error Management Climate and Self-Efficacy

Elderly and Their Families' Online Reviews of China's Nursing Homes