Analysis and visualization of the urban residents’ income-related happiness index in China

Abstract

Using the Theil index and correlation analysis, this paper analyzed the Urban Residents’ Income-Related Happiness Index from multiple perspectives, including the current situation, regional disparities, spatial–temporal variations, and the mutual relationships of the indicators based on data from 289 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2015. The results indicated the following: (1) Overall, the Urban Residents’ Income-Related Happiness Index in China was lower in 2015 and was unevenly spread across space. Several cities with higher Income-Related Happiness Index were primarily situated in the southwest region; (2) The within-province disparities were higher than the between-province disparities; (3) For the past 10 years, the Urban Residents’ Income-Related Happiness Index has exhibited an overall downward trend, and the cities that had slight increases in their Income-Related Happiness Index were primarily situated in North China; and (4) The correlation between the Urban Residents’ Income-Related Happiness Index and the per capita gross regional product is not significantly positive. Most cities in China can be categorized into three types: strong happiness–small economic development, weak happiness–large economic development, and weak happiness– small economic development scales. In addition, this study visualized the index analysis results. All of these results are expressed using different maps.