Wellbeing in England and China

1. Wellbeing in England and China James Banks, Xiaoyan Lei, Albert Park, Andrew Steptoe, Yafeng Wang, Winnie Yip, PaolaZaninotto, Yaohui Zhao

2. Motivation • Healthy aging is priority in aging societies • Understanding determinants of wellbeing and health is key for public policy • Cross-country comparisons can be invaluable for identifying which factors are universal and which depend on local contextualizing factors • Two harmonized data sets (ELSA and CHARLS) enable a comparison between the UK and China

3. Background • China has experienced rapid economic development • Today’s elderly have had very different economic status in their life time • Tremendous wealth accumulation in recent decades, some due to random factors, especially in the housing market • Uneven distribution of luck • Legacies of the past events may have long-term impacts on wellbeing • Collectivization, the Great Famine, the Cultural Revolution, and rapid economic development

4. CHARLS Baseline Survey • Nationally representative sample of people aged 45 and older • About 18,000 individuals in 10,000 households distributed across 450 communities, 150 counties in 28 provinces • Fielded 2011-2012 • Strict quality control in sampling and survey stages • Harmonized with the HRS-ELSA family of surveys • Compare with ELSA wave 4

5. Measures of Well-being • Poor self-reported health • One or more limitations with ADLs/IADLs • One or more mobility impairment • Memory (immediate word recall) • Elevated depression symptoms (3 or more) • High Life satisfaction

6. Harmonizing Well-being MeasuresExample: ADLs/IADLs and Mobility Do have any difficulty…..

7. Outcome measures % by country * * * * *

8. SES Variables • Non-pension wealth per capita quintiles • Educational attainment (4 groups) • Controls: • Age groups (5-year cohorts) • Gender • Marital status

9. Methodology for Comparative Analysis • For each country, regress each outcome on the full set of explanatory • Report coefficients for each explanatory variable (controlling for other factors) • Denote with “*” if the coefficients for the two countries are statistically different

10. Key Findings: Wealth • For physical health measures (self-reported health, ADLs/IADLs, mobility), wealth has stronger relationship in England than in China, with the poorest especially disadvantaged • But opposite is true for psychological health measures (life satisfaction, depression) • Result on memoryis mixe

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17. Explaining Wealth Findings • Wealth less correlated with physical health in China than in England • Current wealth less correlated with lifetime wealth? • Wealth more correlated with psychological wellbeing in China • People in China are more dependent on their current wealth for their livelihood; social security is less important in China

18. Key Findings: Education • Education gradients greater in China for some measures (ADLs/IADLs, life satisfaction, memory)

22. Explaining Education Gradients • Education measures lifetime wealth better than current wealth

23. Conclusions • Health and wellbeing seem to be more related to lifetime socioeconomic status (e.g. education) in China than in the UK • Perhaps due to rapid development and random factors in reshuffling wealth distribution, association between current wealth and lifetime living standards is less in China than in UK • Current wealth is associated with psychological wellbeing • Psychological wellbeing easier to alter than physical health