Producing for what? GDP and Well-being in China’s Economic Policies

Abstract

China’s economic growth in the 2000s relied heavily on its manufacturing and construction sectors, which expanded disproportionately rapidly. During the period of the Hu-Wen administration (2002-2012), the Chinese government announced several policies that facilitated the investments on construction and real estate, in order to maximize GDP growth. This dissertation intends to explore the relationship between China’s construction and GDP-oriented administration and people’s public well-being, measured by a selected set of well-being indexes. Did China’s economic policies truly bring about significant improvements on people’s living, or it only generated GDP bubbles and gaps between productivity and well-being? What were the reasons that led to the result? This research will use a typical industrial city in Central China --- Changsha as the main case, analyzing it with the “before and after” data in China’s Statistical Yearbooks, and comparing it to the other cases in China and Japan. I seek to locate and analyze changes of well-being indicators in the period before, during and after these economic policies were implemented. This study may provide new perspectives in researching the key reasons behind China’s economic rise and recent slowdown, as well as novel explanations on China’s distinctive economic mode guided by political goals, and its impacts to social life. This article will also explore and discuss a major sociological topic: the contradictions between public well-being and the driving force of productivity growth.