40% of Chinese are unhappy
By Zha Minjie |
November 5, 2011, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
ALMOST 40 percent of Chinese say they are unhappy, according to a survey released yesterday.
The groups that feel most satisfied with their lot are company and enterprise leaders, reported the poll, conducted by the Chinese language magazine Xiaokang and Tsinghua University in Beijing.
People quizzed about how happy they felt this year said an inadequate social insurance system is the leading factor getting them down.
The survey, covering 287 cities, included interviewees aged between 20 and 60 years and working in more than 10 occupations.
It found that company leaders, managers and government institute leaders were most pleased with their lives.
However, civil servants were far less happy, it revealed, coming behind self-employed people in the ranking.
Farmers and migrant workers felt most negative about their lives and propped up the happiness scale.
With the gap between rich and poor growing in recent years, for more and more people family backgrounds play a vital role in achieving happiness, interviewees said.
Some 90 percent agreed that "family background, economic status and connections are very important factors in the level of personal happiness."
Gu Xiaoming, a sociologist at Fudan University in Shanghai, said a growing number of people are unhappy, even though quality of life has improved over the years.
"Fast economic development has led to high expectations, while sluggish salary increases and high housing prices have created dissatisfaction," Gu said.
Salary hikes, home price cuts, improved medical insurance and a better environment would make people happier, the survey found.
Farmers losing their land to urbanization and new graduates are two groups struggling amidst high speed of economic growth.
"How can I feel happy?" said a post-graduate student, surnamed Zhu, at a Shanghai university. Zhu, from southern China's Guangdong Province, is trying to find a job in Shanghai.
"I would like to settle down in Shanghai, start a family and provide my children with a better education," Zhu said.
"But now I can see none of these things happening," said Zhu, only half joking.
The groups that feel most satisfied with their lot are company and enterprise leaders, reported the poll, conducted by the Chinese language magazine Xiaokang and Tsinghua University in Beijing.
People quizzed about how happy they felt this year said an inadequate social insurance system is the leading factor getting them down.
The survey, covering 287 cities, included interviewees aged between 20 and 60 years and working in more than 10 occupations.
It found that company leaders, managers and government institute leaders were most pleased with their lives.
However, civil servants were far less happy, it revealed, coming behind self-employed people in the ranking.
Farmers and migrant workers felt most negative about their lives and propped up the happiness scale.
With the gap between rich and poor growing in recent years, for more and more people family backgrounds play a vital role in achieving happiness, interviewees said.
Some 90 percent agreed that "family background, economic status and connections are very important factors in the level of personal happiness."
Gu Xiaoming, a sociologist at Fudan University in Shanghai, said a growing number of people are unhappy, even though quality of life has improved over the years.
"Fast economic development has led to high expectations, while sluggish salary increases and high housing prices have created dissatisfaction," Gu said.
Salary hikes, home price cuts, improved medical insurance and a better environment would make people happier, the survey found.
Farmers losing their land to urbanization and new graduates are two groups struggling amidst high speed of economic growth.
"How can I feel happy?" said a post-graduate student, surnamed Zhu, at a Shanghai university. Zhu, from southern China's Guangdong Province, is trying to find a job in Shanghai.
"I would like to settle down in Shanghai, start a family and provide my children with a better education," Zhu said.
"But now I can see none of these things happening," said Zhu, only half joking.
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