A Dynamic Analysis on the Impact of Main Life Domains Satisfaction on Happiness

Xu Lingli; Fang Min; Wang Liang

doi:doi:10.16538/j.cnki.jfe.2018.12.005

Summary

" The initial heart and mission of Chinese communists is to seek happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation.” This is an important content proposed by the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which was successfully held in October 2017, further clarifying the party and the people’s future goals.　　In this booming era, people’s happiness has become extremely urgent and important, but it has also raised another important issue for us: from what aspects to give people happiness, and how to give people happiness. Focusing on this issue, this paper studies the life trend of residents’ happiness, and the main influencing factors at different stages of life from the perspective of life domains satisfaction. Although the division of main life domains is still in the research stage, according to the existing literature, the generally recognized fields that affect the overall happiness of individuals mainly include health, family, economy and job. According to China’s national conditions and the development direction of Marshall’s demand theory, the influence of social environment on residents’ happiness is increasingly prominent, which becomes an important factor that cannot be ignored. Therefore, the paper not only focuses on the main life domains of health, family, economy and job, but also includes social environmental factors, and studies the impact of five main life domains satisfaction on residents’ happiness. The research on the influence of main life domains satisfaction on subjective well-being （SWB） reflects the high degree of integration between the objective goal that economic research pays attention to and the expected goal that psychology research pays attention to. This paper innovatively studies the marginal effect and the dynamic change of the influence of main life domains satisfaction on SWB, ranks life domains satisfaction according to the marginal effect at different ages, and then provides targeted policy suggestions on how to effectively make people happy.　　The study finds that the SWB of Chinese residents shows a U-shaped trend, first declining and then rising with age. The marginal effects of the five main life domains satisfaction on SWB vary according to the age difference. These marginal effects, from big to small order （in addition to the family satisfaction） respectively are: economic satisfaction, social environment satisfaction, health satisfaction, and job satisfaction. The marginal effect of family satisfaction is special, and the effect on SWB tends to be inverted U-shaped. Taken together, before middle age （about 46）, the improvement of family satisfaction increases SWB most, the second one is economic satisfaction, and job satisfaction has the minimum marginal effect. When young, the improvement in non-monetary factors is more conducive to happiness than that in monetary ones, which is more obvious for urban residents. Therefore, it may be more rational for young urban people to " start a family and start a career”. For rural residents’ happiness, improving economic satisfaction is always the first priority. Promoting happiness, in addition to personal and family efforts, the government can also improve residents’ various life domains satisfaction from various angles. Clarifying the policy supply target according to the urgency of residents’ demand will greatly improve the effectiveness of individual activities and government policies, thus to improve residents’ SWB to the greatest extent. You will feel achievement when you always treat bringing happiness to the people as the original intention.