LIFE SATISFACTION ANALYSIS FOR RURUAL RESIDENTS IN JIANGSU PROVINCE 

 

 

Yang Yu¹ and Zhihong Zou²*

¹Dr., Beihang University, China, lgyuyang@qq.com

²Prof. Dr., Beihang University, China, zouzhihong@buaa.edu.cn

*Corresponding author

 

Abstract

With the rapid development of living standard in China, the life satisfaction as a significant indicator has attracted increasing focus in recent years. Rural residents accounts for 41.48% of total population in China, and their life satisfaction plays a crucial role in social progress. Taking the southern, middle and northern regions of Jiangsu Province as an example, the life satisfaction of rural residents is studied in the paper, and the impacts of income, education level and marital status on different levels of life satisfaction are analyzed respectively. The dataset is derived from the rural residents’ life satisfaction survey of Jiangsu Province in 2010 and is operated by national statistical bureau Jiangsu branch. Bayesian ordinal quantile regression approach is utilized to explore the regression relationships between different levels of life satisfaction and income, education level and marital status. The regression information indicates that the increase of income, the higher education level and singlehood tend to enhance the life satisfaction when it is at the lower and median levels. At higher life satisfaction level, being married gives a push to the happiness compared with divorcement and singlehood, while the income and education level contributes little. The life satisfaction of middle and northern rural residents shows the dependence on income, while that of southern rural residents is mainly affected by education level. The analyses suggest that it is helpful to increase the income for middle and northern rural residents and motivate southern rural residents to receive higher education to improve their life satisfaction. Crucially, running a good marriage is also the key to high quality of life.

Keywords: Life satisfaction, income, education level, marital status, Jiangsu Province.