教育程度、收入水平与中国城市居民幸福感 一项基于CGSS2005的实证分析

Education,Income and Happiness of Chinese Urban Residents:Based on the Data of the 2005 Chinese General Social Survey

本文基于幸福研究的社会经济视角,通过引入收入水平作为中介变量,将教育程度对个体幸福感的影响分解为直接效应和间接效应(也称教育回报效应),并分析它们在不同时空条件下对中国城市居民幸福感的影响。研究发现,教育程度与城市居民幸福感呈现显著的正向关系,拥有中专、高中和大学以上学历的个体是最幸福的。在不同的空间条件下,无论对于市场化程度较高地区还是市场化程度较低地区,教育回报对城市居民幸福感均有显著的正向影响。在不同的时间条件下,教育回报在高等教育扩招前对城市居民幸福感有显著的正向影响,但在高等教育扩招后,这种影响效应则变得不显著。

With the rapid progress of education and happiness has attracted researchers. At present, research on this society, the the attention topic can be relationship between from many social summarized into two main analytic logics. One is the subjective-to-subjective logic, which claims that education can change one＇s cognitive abilities, and in turn, he/she feels happy. The other is the objective-to-subjective logic, which insists that, through education, people obtain knowledge and skills with economic values that can be transformed into intangible capital for revenues. So, education＇s impact on an individual＇s subjective wellbeing is achieved by changing his or her objective living conditions, However, empirical investigation of the second analytic logic is very limited both at home and abroad, especially so in the relevant areas in China. Thereby, from the socioeconomic perspective in the happiness research, this study used income as an intervening variable and decomposed the effect of education on people＇s happiness into direct effect and indirect effect （or the effect of education returns）. Furthermore, it analyzed their impacts on Chinese urban residents＇ happiness in different spaces and times. A positive correlation between education and urban residents＇ happiness was observed. Individuals with high school or technical school diplomas and those with Bachelor＇s degrees were the happiest. Regardless of the level of marketization in a region, education returns correlated positively with people＇s happiness. Examined in different times, such positive correlation was significant prior to the recruitment expansion in higher education but disappeared after recruitment expansion in higher education was in practice. These results revealed an important problem： The increase in education returns didn＇ t necessarily improve the happiness felt by urban residents under certain conditions. To the author, the cause of this phenomenon might be in the changed structural characteristics that could have influenced education returns - a segmented labor market, an explanation different from that in the West.