The Gender Happiness Gap in China: Composition Effect or Coefficient Effect?

Abstract

This study revisits the puzzle of the gender happiness gap in China based on data from the China General Social Survey between 2008 and 2017. Decomposition analyses in this study indicate that women are happier than men mainly due to women’s higher positive responsiveness to happiness determinants (the coefficient effect) rather than a higher level of objective achievements (the composition effect). Women obtain happiness from education despite not having a higher education, and women get more happiness from spousal income instead of personal income. Within families, the study finds that the greater the income gap between husband and wife, the greater the gender happiness gap. To help explain this gap, the study demonstrates that women living under traditional gender norms have higher evaluation of their education when they obtain lower levels of education than those living under egalitarian norms.

HIGHLIGHTS

• In China, women’s objective achievements in education and income have improved but remain lower than men’s.

• Women are happier than men due to higher responsiveness to achievements.

• The income gap between husbands and wives increases women’s subjective well-being and reduces men’s.

• The traditional belief that men are more capable leaves women worse off in education.

• The gender happiness gap is much larger in urban areas and eastern regions of China.

KEYWORDS:

• Happiness
• gender gap
• decomposition
• China

JEL Codes:

• J16

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2023.2279212.

Notes

1 Following Nicole Fortin, Thomas Lemieux, and Sergio Firpo (2011), we refer to these two parts as the composition effect and coefficient effect, which are equivalent to “explained” and “unexplained” used in some other decomposition studies.

2 The sample prior to 2008 was not included because the survey data of these years was missing necessary key variables.

3 The empirical p-values test the significance of coefficient differences between groups. They are estimated based on the null hypothesis that the coefficients are equal for the two genders.

4 We also use the nonlinear decomposition to test the robustness, as shown in the Section 3 of Online Appendix.

5 Note that spouse income is contained in the data only after 2010.

Additional information

Funding

This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (Project 72173122).

Notes on contributors

Jidong Yang

Jidong Yang is Professor in the School of Economics at Renmin University of China. Professor Yang does research on firm theory, institutional economics, and happiness economics. His recent publication includes “Happiness Inequality in China” in the Journal of Happiness Studies (2019).

Yunqi Zeng

Yunqi Zeng holds a PhD from the School of Economics at Renmin University of China.

Xianghong Wang

Xianghong Wang, the corresponding author, is Professor in the School of Economics at Renmin University of China; Director of the Laboratory of Economic Behavior and Organization; and Associate Editor of Economic and Political Studies. Dr. Wang got her PhD in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University. She has published articles at Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Development Studies, Journal of Comparative Economics, etc. She served as a member of the first Global Agenda Council in Behavior for World Economic Forum. She helped to found China Behavioral and Experimental Economics Forum (ChinaBEEF).