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Wellbeing profiles and their relationships to gender, homeownership, income, marriage, and education: Exploring hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing in the East

Wanying Zhou, Dan Jiang, Ros McLellan, Hanxin Qian, and Honglie Wu

Abstract

Prior research has not yet to establish a clear understanding of the relationship between hedonic wellbeing (HWB) and eudaimonic wellbeing (EWB), particularly how they manifest within individuals. Moreover, it remains unclear whether HWB and EWB operate similarly across different cultural contexts. This study applies Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) to identify distinct wellbeing profiles among 1,283 residents (51.1% male) in a major coastal and capital city in China, spanning all ten districts. Five wellbeing profiles emerged: extremely low EWB, extremely low HWB, slightly low WB, slightly high WB, and extremely high WB. Notably, unlike findings from Western studies, no divergent wellbeing profiles—such as high HWB combined with low EWB, or vice versa—were observed in the Chinese sample. Multinomial logistic regression further revealed that homeownership was one of the strongest predictors of wellbeing, even after controlling for income. These findings contribute to the ongoing debate on the HWB-EWB relationship and suggest that cultural, cognitive, and linguistic differences may shape how individuals conceptualize and internalize wellbeing. This study offers valuable insights for policymakers and researchers seeking to promote wellbeing in a holistic manner, emphasizing the need to consider social and cultural contexts when evaluating wellbeing frameworks.

Author Talks: Are your employees happy at work?

McKinsey & Company

In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey’s Vanessa Burke chats with Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, about Why Workplace Wellbeing Matters: The Science Behind Employee Happiness and Organizational Performance (Harvard Business Review Press, Spring 2025), coauthored with INSEAD assistant professor George Ward. De Neve shares data analysis on the feelings and motivations of millions of job seekers and identifies key drivers that influence their workplace well-being. He explains why workplace well-being varies across companies and provides evidence-based ideas for business leaders who seek to improve productivity, recruitment, and retention.

2501 | Why you should measure subjective changes

Caspar Kaiser and Alberto Prati

Satisfaction data are widely used in psychology and the social sciences. Those data normally seek to measure satisfaction levels. Yet, for many applications we are primarily interested in the change in satisfaction following an intervention or life event. We here show that, compared to inferences from longitudinal data on levels, cross sectional interviews that ask about changes in satisfaction yield data that (i) are more sensitive to life events, (ii) more accurately track changes in objective benefits, (iii) display comparable psychometric properties, and (iv) are less affected by respondents’ day-today mood. The results hold across several domains of life. Primary data from two studies (N=2,012; N=1,734) are supplemented by large-scale secondary data from the British Household Panel Survey (N≈150,000). Our findings provide robust evidence that repeated cross-sectional surveys are sufficient to track satisfaction changes reliably, without the need of longitudinal panel data.

Acts of kindness can make you happier and healthier, researchers say

CNBC

“People consistently and universally underestimate the kindness of others,” says Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, editor of the report and director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford. But the truth is, it happens more often than people realize.

“In the United States, only 30% of people think the wallet will be returned when lost,” says De Neve. “The reality is about 60% of wallets get returned when lost.”

Wellbeing in small-scale societies

Prof Victoria Reyes García (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) shared findings on subjective wellbeing among small-scale societies at the latest of the Wellbeing Research Centre’s Seminar Series.

Her work examines the levels of, and factors to support, life satisfaction and other measures of subjective wellbeing among indigenous peoples and local communities across 19 globally distributed sites.

Watch the full presentation on the Centre’s YouTube channel.

Improving subjective scales

Prof Daniel J. Benjamin (UCLA) shared findings on techniques to improve subjective scales at the latest of the Wellbeing Research Centre’s Seminar Series.

His work, presented under the title ‘Adjusting for Scale-Use Heterogeneity on Subjective Scales’, tests multiple techniques on fine-tuning the validity and reliability of subjective scales, such as those used to measure wellbeing.

Watch the full presentation on the Centre’s YouTube channel.

Trump is creating a selfish, miserable world. Here’s what we can do

The Guardian

But what should you do if you don’t like the way the world is going? Is there anything you can do?

The obvious answer is to rage, doomscroll and hope for the next election. But the obvious answer is no longer an option once we realize the antidote to Trump is to build a happier, higher trust society. Drawing on my dual experience as a moral philosopher and happiness researcher, I’d like to suggest some alternative ways you can fight back.

Finland Says It Can Teach Tourists to Be Happy. Challenge Accepted.

The New York Times

I had come to Finland to see whether I could bring happiness back to America with me. Finland has topped the World Happiness Report for the past eight years, a merit largely attributed to the Nordic welfare state, trust in the government, and public policies like free education and universal health care. Under these criteria, living in the United States (No. 24 on the list) is practically a recipe for misery. But the Finns also find contentment in more attainable ways, such as their close relationship with nature (74 percent of the country is covered by forest) and visiting the sauna daily (there are three million saunas for a population of 5.5 million).

America’s happiness crisis is a generational divide

Salon

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve also provides some hope in this global era of crisis, great anxiety and dread. He explains that the 2025 World Happiness Survey shows that people across the world are generally much kinder and caring than is commonly believed.

What it’s like to live in the happiest country on Earth

BBC Travel

Finns tend to accept the accolade of supreme happiness, bestowed on them by the World Happiness Report in March 2025 for the eighth time in a row, with a collective shrug and eye roll. But Finnish travel operators are celebrating as travellers increasingly make the connection between Finland and happiness, hoping to come and experience that Finnish brand of happiness for themselves.