Housing and Subjective Class Identification in Urban China

Chen, Wei; Wu, Xiaogang; Jia, Miao

doi:10.1080/21620555.2019.1601012

Cited by 25 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Housing is also likely to affect Chinese people's happiness because of the sociocultural values attached to it. For example, in China and other Asian countries, homeownership is viewed as a symbol of social status, stability, and responsibility, a way of meeting family obligations (Chen et al, 2019; Couper and Brindley, 1975; Hu, 2013), and a prerequisite for marriage (Yu and Xie, 2015), childrearing, and other family processes integral to a happy life. It is thus plausible that homeownership contributes to a higher level of happiness in China, just as suggested by previous studies on urban Chinese residents (Cheng et al, 2016; Hu, 2013; Huang and Clark, 2002).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family life and Chinese adults’ happiness across the life span

Liu

2021

Chinese Journal of Sociology

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An individual's happiness is closely related to their family life as the family is the institution in which they spend most of their life. Capitalizing on data from the 2018 China Family Panel Studies, this study investigates the relationship between family economic standing (measured by household income and homeownership) and family processes (measured by marital status and childlessness), as well as children's characteristics (measured by gender composition of children and adult children's educational attainment and marital status), and happiness of Chinese adults. We take a life-course perspective and examine how such relationships vary across different life stages. We find that factors like household income and homeownership are positively related to happiness for people in general; that married adults are happier than those who are unmarried; childlessness results in decreased individual happiness in old age; adult children's educational attainment, measured by college degree (three-year and four-year) and above, improves parents’ happiness; while children's unmarried status makes parents less happy. These significant relationships also change across the life span.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family life and Chinese adults’ happiness across the life span

Liu

2021

Chinese Journal of Sociology

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“…For example, people with higher professional status enjoy more work autonomy, engage in less physical labor, and have less opportunities to be exposed to the risk of a poor-quality environment [ 52 ]. Similarly, higher income is usually associated with better quality of life, housing conditions, and living environment, thus improving an individual’s subjective social class perception [ 53 ]. There is no doubt that the optimization of environmental quality can improve an individual’s depression and psychological function [ 54 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Environmental Quality Perception on Depression: Subjective Social Class as a Mediator

Zhang

2021

IJERPH

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Although the relationship between environment and public depression has aroused heated debate, the empirical research on the relationship between environmental quality perception and public depression is still relatively insufficient. This paper aims to explore the influence of environmental quality perception on public depression and the mediating role of subjective social class between environmental quality perception and public depression. Using the China Family Panel Studies data of 2016 for empirical analysis, this study’s results show that environmental quality perception has a significant effect on public depression and subjective social class also has a significant effect on public depression. In addition, we found that subjective social class can play a partial mediating role between environmental quality perception and public depression, and the intermediary effect only comes from the contribution of the perception of living environmental quality, not the perception of overall environmental quality. That is to say, the perception of living environment quality deeply affects the subjective social class, and then induces public depression. In order to alleviate the relationship between environmental quality and public depression, it is recommended that the state environmental protection department and civil affairs department strengthen the improvement of public living environment so as to promote individual subjective social class and reduce the risk of public depression. Moreover, it is suggested that research with longitudinal design and comprehensive indicators be undertaken in the future.

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“…To a certain extent, a good community environment is an important external sign of success and wealth, which may lead to the improvement of personal social capital and social status [57]. It can be seen that housing wealth has become the standard for people to identify with the subjective social class, representing the symbol of identity [58]. Due to the close relationship between social resources and interpersonal relationships, the social benefits of community environment are amplified and the community environment is further endowed with positive symbolic and psychological significance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community Environment Perception on Depression: The Mediating Role of Subjective Social Class

Zhang

2021

IJERPH

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Depression has become a major social issue of global concern, which has seriously threatened the quality of an individual’s life. Although the relationship between community environment and depression has aroused heated debate, the empirical research on the relationship between community environment perception and public depression is still relatively insufficient. Data for this study are from China Family Panel Studies in 2016, which were conducted by the institute of Social Science Survey, Peking University. This paper has tested group differences in the influence of community environment on public depression, as well as the mediating role of subjective social class between community environment perception and depression, so as to further explore the social psychological effect of community environment. The empirical study found that there are group differences in the impacts of community environment perception on depression. Specifically, men, rural residents, and people aged 60 and under are more likely to be depressed which were affected by the perception of community environment. Furthermore, we have found that the subjective social class can partly mediate community environment perception and depression. That is to say, the perception of community environment can induce depression by influencing the individual’s subjective social class. Among them, community living environment and community public facilities have the greatest impact, community emotional attachment and community security situation have the second impact, and neighborhood mutual aid and neighborhood relationship have the least impact. In other words, the community environment is deeply endowed with a social psychological effect. To ameliorate the public’s depression, it is necessary to consider the construction of community physical environment and the cultivation of harmonious community culture as powerful measures not to be ignored. In short, the important role of community environmental intervention in alleviating the public’s depression caused by social class cognition deserves attention.

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Housing and Subjective Class Identification in Urban China

Cited by 25 publications

References 64 publications

Family life and Chinese adults’ happiness across the life span

Family life and Chinese adults’ happiness across the life span

Effects of Environmental Quality Perception on Depression: Subjective Social Class as a Mediator

Community Environment Perception on Depression: The Mediating Role of Subjective Social Class

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