Subjective Well-being of Young People in Three Chinese Societies: Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao

Subjective Well-being of Young People in Three Chinese Societies: Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao

Presenter: Dr. WONG Tze-wai, Kevin, Prof. HSIAO Hsin-Huang, Michael, Prof. CHIU W. K., Stephen, Ms WAN Po-san and Dr. ZHENG Wan-tai, Victor
Event: 15th International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) Annual Conference
Event website

Abstract

In 2014, large-scale youth-led social movements broke out successively in Taiwan, Macao, and Hong Kong. Young people in these three societies are believed to have become unhappier with their life than before. This study takes social mobility as an integrated indicator for illustration. The team conducted a telephone survey in these three societies in 2016. For each society, about 1,000 young people aged 18 to 35 were randomly selected and successfully interviewed. Using the data, we examined the correlation of the personal experience and perception of social mobility of the young people with their subjective well-being. It was found that only a small number of young people could reach top positions through occupational mobility. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, more than 70% of the respondents perceived that they had not been moving upward and that there are insufficient opportunities for them to do so. It was also found in the three societies that young people who did not perceive themselves as upwardly mobile, or who believed that there were insufficient opportunities for them to move upward, were more dissatisfied with their life and job, and more likely to believe that their standard of living was not fair compared with their efforts in the job. The findings suggest that social mobility is a key determinant of subjective well-being for young people in the three Chinese societies. Solving the mobility problem of young people will help to improve their subjective well-being.