Table 1 Description of outcome, predictor and control variables used. (Page 7, Line 174)
Measure | Description | Example item | Item range/ categories | Mean (SD)/ Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Outcomesa | Happiness | Single item | “How happy are you?” | 1 (low happiness) to 5 (high happiness) | 3.82 (1.02) |
Life satisfaction | Single item | “How satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?” | 1 (low life satisfaction) to 5 (high satisfaction) | 3.47 (1.04) | |
Depressive symptomatology | Short form of the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) - sum composite of 6 items | “How often in the past month did you feel so depressed that nothing could cheer you up?” | 6 to 30 | 12.12 (3.95) | |
Individual Level Predictors | Education level | Total number of years spent in education | 1 to 22 | 6.77 (4.81) | |
Employment status | Dichotomous variable of employed or unemployed | 0 (employed) and 1 (unemployed) | 49.59% unemployed | ||
Relationship status | A set of dummy variables, with being married as the comparative baseline and a set of dummy variables representing (1) single, (2) cohabiting, (3) divorced, and (4) widowed | 83.03% married (8.91% single, 0.22% cohabiting, 1.38% divorced, 6.46% widowed) | |||
County Level Predictors | County average education | Average education level in county | 8.94 (1.38) | ||
County unemployment rate | Proportion unemployed in county | 0 to 1 | 0.33 (0.10) | ||
County marriage rate | Proportion married in county | 0 to 1 | 0.71 (0.04) | ||
Control Variables | Age | 18 to 110 | 47.18 (15.52) | ||
Gender | 0 (male) and 1 (female) | 51.94% female | |||
Ethnicity | Han-Chinese or not Han-Chinese | 0 (Han) and 1 (non-Han) | 8.42% non-Han | ||
Urban | Living in urban or rural area, categorised by 2010 censusb | 0 (rural) and 1 (urban) | 44.22% urban | ||
Health | Single item | “How would you rate your health status?” | 1 to 5 | 1.86 (1.04) | |
Log income per capita | Net household income per capita (logarithm transformed) | 9152.17d (15,094.24) | |||
Log county GDP per capita | County GDP per capita (from census data) | 40,458.11d (52,841.14) | |||
Log asset per capita | Net family asset per capita (logarithm transformed) | 83,174.58e (211,855.63) | |||
Log county asset per capita | County average family asset per capita (logarithm transformed)a | 83,912.10c (116,575.67) | |||