[jolepp]

Abstract / summary:

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 Euro-
pean 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of life satisfaction has been replaced by an increasingly unequal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.

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/356394/chinalifesatisfaction.pdf

[Nesster]

...and that's a good thing - shows us how enterprise, hard work, creativity and entrepreneurial initiative not only create wealth, these create life satisfaction.

The problem in China now is going to be as in Europe and the USA: just how much are they going to confiscate from the job creators to encourage and condition the bottom third to idle dependence on welfare? Just how socialist is China going to be? They have a great opportunity to educate and train their workers, given their recent history, so that the bottom third also can become enterprising, hard working, creative and entrepreneurial, and create wealth and life satisfaction also. For without the lumbering euro-style social-democratic legacy, nimble China can indeed be what the USA was, once, where even the bottom third can become rich and move into the top third. Everybody can be in the top third! That is the magic of market based solutions.

[Medium FormatPro]

Got to spend some three weeks in China during the time of the Olympics that were there. While one can never learn about any culture in some three limited weeks... What I did see while there was nothing short of incredibly impressive. I cannot wait to go back and also would not mind studying there.


Also of interest... Within this decade... Sixty percent of all vehicles will be made in either China, Korea, or Japan. Even Ford will start having a majority of their manufacturing there quite soon; as will General Motors. Those two companies expect to see more vehicles in China by the end of this decade than ever sold in america.

[jolepp]

related: BBC News - China: Growing old before it can grow rich?

[GeneV]

related: BBC News - China: Growing old before it can grow rich?

Perhaps it is the result of reading both articles quickly, but it seems there is some contradiction between the two in their assessments of the employment situation. The first article seems to say that unemployment may be a contributing factor to the decline in life satisfaction, while the second article indicates there is a labor shortage. The common thread, though, is a lessening of security about the future.

[jolepp]

Shortage in general (implied by the latter article) would be somewhat of surprise and a significant change on China: so far the impression has been one of a huge pool of (underemployed) labor (in the rural areas). I suppose the distress referred to in the former article would have been chiefly that of the transition from the 'iron rice bowl' (i.e. guaranteed employment) to (varying) unemployment under the new (more or less) capitalist mode of production.