| Promoting national happiness is the ultimate goal of economic growth and public policy.But the happiness of our residents does not seem to be synchronized with the rapid economic transformation and rapid growth,Instead,it presents a worrying downward trend.It constitutes a strong contrast with in the past forty years,China’s reform and opening up and economic growth achieved by the abundant material welfare results.This is called the Easterling paradox:When a country’s per capita income increases,the level of national happiness does not increase.At present,the main explanation for the paradox is that income inequality has a significant impact on happiness,but there is no consensus on the direction of the impact,and no consensus has been reached.How to explain the paradox of happiness in China?How does income inequality affect the level of happiness? This study attempts to provide a possible explanation for these problems to a certain extent,and also provides a reference for policy makers.In this paper,we study the effect of income inequality on the sense of happiness by using the data of CGSS in 2013.On the basis of combing the relevant literature and theoretical analysis,the paper mainly adopts the methods of literature analysis,quantitative analysis and comparative analysis to study the impact of income inequality on happiness.The main use of OLS and Probit measurement methods of empirical analysis,first separately investigated the impact of income and income inequality on residents’ happiness,and then examine the changes effected by both of them at the same time.In order to obtain more detailed conclusions,this paper makes an analysis of the urban and rural education levels,and makes a marginal effect analysis on the factors affecting the residents’ happiness.The main conclusion of research are 1:the level of absolute income is still an important factor affecting the ultimate goal of life of the residents and in accordance with the law of diminishing marginal effect.2:the income gap has different effects on the level of happiness of the residents with different education levels:On the whole,the income gap has a positive impact on the level of happiness;In particular,the income gap has a negative impact on the level of happiness of low,lower,high education level residents,and has a positive effect on the level of well-being of the middle and higher education level residents.At the same time,compared with the rural sample,the income gap can promote more the happiness of the sample.It indicatesthat the principle of market distribution is gradually recognized by everyone,and the demonstration effect of income gap is stronger than that of comparison.3: in addition,the house property is still an important factor affecting the level of well-being of residents in china;marriage,health level has a greater impact on the level of well-being;The level of education indirectly affects the level of residents’ happiness through income level;With the growth of age,the happiness of residents showed U type changes;medical insurance has a positive impact on the well-being of residents,compared with pension insurance,people pay more attention to medical insurance. |
