Quality of Life and Life Satisfaction of Chinese People: An Empirical Analysis from 2006-2013

This research focuses on the quality of life and life satisfaction of Chinese people, from the perspective of wealth distribution. It firstly analyzed the income structure of China as research context. The urban and rural population was divided into four income groups - the high income group, the middle income group, the lower-middle income group and the low income group. The core part of research is to look at the trend of expenditure among urban and rural households to examine their quality of life, and to analyze the subjective dimension of quality of life - life satisfaction of urban population and its impact factors. The empirical analysis uses data from China Social Survey 2006-2013. It is found that the income structure of China is still the pyramid shape, with 70% of the urban population belonging to lower-middle and low income groups and a ‘frozen-up’ middle income group. It is very significant that the proportion of culture and entertainment expenditure is very low in both urban and rural families, indicating that the general quality of life among the population is unsatisfactory. Regression models show that income has significant impact on life satisfaction in China. Findings also emphasize social factors - measured by social security satisfaction, income equality evaluation and public service evaluation, and environmental factors - measured by satisfaction with local environment. This research generated helpful implications on class distinction and wealth distribution of China, and provided useful policy suggestions on how to improve people’s objective and subjective well-being.