Department of Psychology, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China; Social and Health Psychology Research Center, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China.
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Soc Sci Med. 2019 Jul;232:120-128. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.04.043. Epub 2019 Apr 30.
Much of the research on the detrimental effects of inequality on well-being is based on cross-sectional surveys, which may have over- or under-estimated the relationship between income inequality and well-being. Moreover, the vast majority of the work comes from Western industrialized contexts but it is not known to what extent the same pattern holds in non-Western developing countries.
The current research aims to address these two issues by investigating the longitudinal effects of income inequality on well-being in China.
We used the China Family Panel Studies dataset in 2010-2014. Our study includes a representative sample of 29,331 residents from 20 provinces in China. The participants completed measures of well-being, including subjective well-being and psychological distress. We examined whether provincial-level income inequality in 2010 predicted individual-level well-being in 2014.
Multilevel analyses showed that residents in more unequal provinces had lower subjective well-being and greater psychological distress. The patterns still held, after controlling for baseline well-being and a number of covariates, including age, gender, education, income, ethnicity, marital status, and urban/rural residence. The effects of inequality on well-being differed across socioeconomic groups.
Findings suggest that income inequality has long-term adverse consequences on well-being in a non-Western developing society. Furthermore, its effects are moderated by financial wealth.
许多关于不平等对幸福感的不利影响的研究都是基于横断面调查，这可能高估或低估了收入不平等与幸福感之间的关系。此外，绝大多数研究来自西方工业化背景，但在多大程度上适用于非西方发展中国家尚不清楚。
本研究旨在通过调查中国收入不平等对幸福感的纵向影响来解决这两个问题。
我们使用了 2010-2014 年的中国家庭动态跟踪调查数据。我们的研究包括来自中国 20 个省份的 29331 名居民的代表性样本。参与者完成了幸福感的测量，包括主观幸福感和心理困扰。我们检验了 2010 年省级收入不平等是否可以预测 2014 年个体的幸福感。
多层次分析显示，处于不平等程度较高的省份的居民主观幸福感较低，心理困扰较大。在控制了基线幸福感和一些协变量（包括年龄、性别、教育、收入、种族、婚姻状况和城乡居住）后，这些模式仍然存在。不平等对幸福感的影响在不同的社会经济群体中存在差异。
研究结果表明，在非西方发展社会中，收入不平等对幸福感有长期的不利影响。此外，其影响受到金融财富的调节。
