China’s life satisfaction, 1990–2010

The main purpose of this article is to describe the trend in subjective well-being of the Chinese population during China’s transition from socialism to capitalism, and to identify differences in SWB by socioeconomic status.To support our findings on SWB, we report likely causal factors, drawing on evidence in both China and the European transition countries. Many believe that well-being is increased by economic growth, and that the higher the growth rate, the greater the increase in well-being. There could hardly be a better country than China for testing these expectations of increased well-being. China’s transition has been marked by perhaps the highest two-decade rate of growth in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita ever seen, a remarkable ≥8% per year. Between 1990 and 2009, per capita GDP and consumption in China (in constant dollar terms) increased by at least fourfold