Social Mobility and Happiness in China

Several sociologists, notably Durkheim, argue that social mobility tends to bring about psychological distress. These theories are supported by recent empirical studies but the results are inconclusive. This article joins the line of research on the consequences of social mobility to examine the effect of intergenerational occupational mobility on subjective well-being in China, using data from the Chinese General Social Survey. This research extends prior studies by examining the full range of possible relationships among origins and destinations, on the one hand, and subjective well-being on the other. The results of this analysis show that the association between social mobility and subjective well-being is not linear. For those from farming and unskilled manual origins, upward mobility is associated with higher levels of happiness. For those from higher status origins, however, downward mobility is not necessarily associated with lower levels of happiness. Whereas the subjective well-being of the upwardly mobile is influenced to a greater degree by their current occupational positions, the subjective well-being of the downwardly mobile is influenced to a greater degree by their origins. While the findings indicate that social mobility has made the Chinese people as a whole psychologically better off.