This book makes a systematic empirical analysis of the quality of life of Chinese residents from the perspective of social change, expounds the connotation, theory, elements, and research methodology of the quality of life, and focuses on the diachronic dynamic analysis of the multidimensional elements of the quality of life from the perspective of life course and life cycle. According to the research content, the book is divided into three topics. The first topic, from the first chapter to the third chapter, mainly focuses on the quality of life research and theoretical evolution, providing theoretical guidance for the empirical analysis of the book and scientific significance for the study of the quality of life in social change. The second project, from Chapter 4 to Chapter 7, focuses on the influence factors of quality of life of a Chinese resident, structure composition, and the relationship between the related factors to conduct empirical research, the purpose is to more clearly understand the present status of life quality in the Chinese culture, for the further scientific research was related to quality of life to provide the basic framework. The third topic, from Chapter 8 to Chapter 13, focuses on empirical analysis of the changes and development of subjective and objective quality of life of Chinese residents.

An examination of the major academic databases shows that there is a severe lack of studies of the quality of life of Chinese people. This picture deserves attention, particularly in view of the growing influence of China in the global arena. This book examines quality of life in Chinese people in different Chinese communities, including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau. It is pioneer in the field and it has several unique features. First, in view of the lack of studies on Chinese family quality of life, this book contains papers on Chinese family quality of life. Second, in response to the lack of studies on the quality of life of Chinese adolescents, several papers on adolescent assessment, theory and intervention are included. Third, several papers examine quality of life of Chinese people in different stages of the life cycle. Finally, to give a broad picture about quality of life phenomena, papers adopting quantitative and qualitative methodologies are included in this book.

The majority of studies on the quality of life have been conducted in Western contexts and are based on Western participants. Comparatively speaking, there are only a few studies that have been conducted in different Chinese contexts. Also, there are fewer QOL studies based on children and adolescents, or studies that examine the relationship between QOL and economic disadvantage. In addition, more research is needed to address the methodological issues related to the assessment of quality of life. This volume is a constructive response to the challenges described above. It is the first book to cover research in Chinese, Western and global contexts in a single volume. It is a ground-breaking volume in which Chinese studies on the quality of life are collected. The book includes papers addressing family QOL, quality of life in adolescents experiencing economic disadvantage, and methodological issues in the assessment of QOL. It is written by researchers working in a variety of disciplines.

This book analyzes how Chinese people use their time, including how busy Chinese seek a healthy work-life balance, how some children win from the outset in terms of education, and how people pursue quality of life outside of or after work. General readers will get a vivid and detailed impression of the way Chinese people spend their time, while researchers will find a wealth of phenomena and data for analysis from both economic and social perspectives. The research presented here was conducted in the context of the Chinese Time Use Survey (CTUS), a nationwide initiative launched by Inner Mongolia University in 2017. The CTUS covers 29 Chinese provinces, and the database contains the time use information of 30,591 people aged 3 years and over from 12,471 households. The survey collects information at three main levels: personal, family and community.

The core of this book is the concept of huodegan (获得感), which refers to a sense of gain that includes perceived individual wellbeing and social development. Given that measuring sense of gain has become critical in the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics and along with the social indicators movement in the last decade, building an index for evaluating sense of gain becomes critical. Apart from reviewing the existing index systems for social development and policy and the previous studies exploring the sense of gain, this book highlights the importance of combining Chinese socio-cultural features, established theories, and index systems.

East Asia is at the heart of the global economic transformation, and the countries of the region are witnessing rapidly changing labour markets, alongside the pressure to cut production costs and lower taxes in order to become successful ‘competition states’. These changes have resulted in increased welfare demands which governments, organizations and agencies across the region have had to address. This book examines welfare regimes in the Greater China region, encompassing mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. In so doing, it explores the ways in which the rapid growth and internationalisation of the economy across Greater China is presenting new social policy challenges that governments, social welfare organizations and agencies in the region are having to respond to. Rather than simply describing and categorising welfare systems, the contributors to this volume add to our understanding of how one of the major economic transformations of the contemporary era in East Asia is shaping welfare provision in the region. In turn, in this context of economic change, they examine the new strategies and measures that have been adopted in order to reduce the heavy burden on the state in terms of welfare provision, whilst also attempting to diversify funding and provision sources to meet the pressing welfare needs. Based upon extensive fieldwork by leading scholars of social policy, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Asian social policy, comparative development and social policy, social welfare and Chinese studies.

Key research in the world’s largest aging population – in China – has fed into this important new work, which aims to answer questions critical to older people worldwide. These include: is the period of disability compressing or expanding with increasing life expectancy and what factors are associated with these trends in the recent decades? And is it possible to realize morbidity compression with a prolongation of the life span in the future? Essential reading for gerontologists.