Subjective Well-Being of China’s Off-Farm Migrants

By I. Nielsen, Russell Smyth *, Qingguo Zhai. 2010

114 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Existing research applying the personal wellbeing index (PWI) in China is restricted to urban and rural samples. There are no studies for Chinese off-farm migrants. The specific aims of this study are: (a) ascertain whether Chinese off-farm are satisfied with their lives; (b) investigate the equivalence of the PWI in terms of its psychometric properties; and (c) examine whether the responses to the PWI from participants falls within the normative range predicted by the Theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis. The PWI demonstrated good psychometric performance in terms of its reliability and validity and was consistent with previous studies for Western and non-Western samples. The data revealed a moderate level of subjective well-being (PWI score = 62.6). While Chinese off-farm migrants lead hard lives, the PWI was within the normative range predicted for Chinese societies by the Theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis. A likely explanation for this finding rests with the circular nature of migration in China. When China’s off-farm migrants find it too difficult to cope in the cities, most have the fallback position that they can return to their homes in the countryside. This option provides an external buffer to minimize the inherent challenges of life which would otherwise impinge on the life satisfaction of China’s off-farm migrants.

Subfields: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Plant Science, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/82d97aa15694e9d3a66112c76f24f894da1d068c

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Citations in the corpus

Homeownership and Subjective Wellbeing in Urban China: Does Owning a House Make You Happier? (2011, background): “Although in recent years there has been a rising concern over the issue of subjective wellbeing in China (for instance, Appleton and Song 2008; Chyi and Mao 2011; Davey and Rato 2011; Knight et al. 2009; Nielsen et al. 2010; Shek 2010; Shek 2011; Wang and VanderWeele 2011), the limited available evi”
Miserable Migrants? Natural Experiment Evidence on International Migration and Objective and Subjective Well-Being (2012, background): “15 With only a single question it is impossible to estimate the internal consistency of the subjective well-being indicator and to capture the multidimensionality of psychological constructs (Nielsen et al., 2010, p. 318).”