To find out the answers, Xu Anqi, a research fellow with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, spent a year interviewing and surveying Shanghai residents from a microcosmic angle in a series of studies, ranging from family welfare and social policies to the status of women.

She looked in particular into how local residents feel about the pressures in their lives, their physical and mental health, marriage and family relationships, social aid, gender differences and lifestyles.

Her efforts resulted in an exhaustive and strict appraisal of the quality of life of Shanghai families, which is included in the 2003 Blue Paper on Cultural Development in Shanghai. The Shanghai surveys show that China has a long way to go to reach the goal of building a "xiaokang" or a well-off society, in an all-round way.

Material Life

In her surveys, Xu discovered that Shanghai people are becoming much more open-minded when talking about their material lives than they were years ago.

According to local statistics, the average annual income for employed people in Shanghai in 2001 amounted to 20,876 yuan (US$2,522), while the per capita disposable income of urban families reached 12,883 yuan (US$1,556), five times that of a decade ago.

In Shanghai, per capita family savings grew to 22,619 yuan (US$2,733), nearly nine times those of a decade ago, while per capita housing was 12.1 square meters in 2001, nearly twice that of a decade ago.

For every 100 households in Shanghai, there are 154 color television sets, 103 refrigerators, 100 air conditioners, 99 washing machines, 85 microwave ovens, 67 hot shower devices, 56 VCD or DVD players, 50 video cassette recorders and 38 personal computers.

However, during her sample survey, Xu found that only 41.6 percent of interviewees expressed full or partial satisfaction when asked to evaluate their general feelings about their material lives. Most people gave a very low rating for the indexes in relation to their income, housing and medical insurance.

Xu explained that the industrial restructuring and employment reform resulted in more middle-aged workers being laid off or forced to take early retirement.

Moreover, other social reforms have required individual households to spend more on education, medical care and pension contributions. Xu said that some families with insufficient resources have seen their material standards of living dropping dramatically.

Xu pointed out that a low level of satisfaction with material conditions of life is related to monotonous activities in which the families engage during their leisure hours.

According to her survey, during their leisure hours, 48 percent choose to watch TV soap operas or films; 59.8 percent read books, newspapers and magazines; 34.6 percent listen to music and traditional operas; and 16.6 percent play cards and mah-jong.

Life's Pressures

What constituted pressure on the lives of Shanghai residents?

In her survey, Xu found that pressure came from an unstable work situation, children's education, and strained circumstances.

"The pressures of employment and survival have become a major difficulty and worry for those who don't have enough formal schooling, skills and good health," Xu said.

This is especially the case with some middle-aged married couples who went through the calamity of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and received a poor education. They are now paying a lot for their children's education while taking care of their elderly parents. They are more hard-pressed than other age groups.

However, the survey also shows that Shanghai residents have found numerous ways to relieve the pressure and know how to keep healthy both physically and mentally when they are in a state of fatigue.

Although 50.8 percent of people said they felt exhausted, only 5.6 percent felt "helpless", 3 percent "inferior than others" and 1.4 percent "lonely." And 6.6 percent felt they were "failures" and 2.2 percent felt "life was meaningless."

Nevertheless, Xu warned that Shanghai residents should not take their health situation lightly.

The study shows that only 34.4 percent of Shanghai people engage in regular exercise.

Moreover, 28.6 percent of Shanghai urban women and 19.4 percent of urban men do not go to hospital when they are sick. Meanwhile, 52.9 percent of urban men and 56.1 percent of urban women surveyed said that they had not had a regular medical check-up within the past three years. The figures were even higher among rural men and women.

Xu said that people are reluctant to go to hospital largely because of their busy work schedules or family chores, or for fear of large medical expenses due to the lack of a medical insurance system or the long distance from the nearest hospital.

Family Relationship

With the process of urbanization, families are getting smaller with the ever-decreasing birth rate. The axis of the modern family has shifted, with the vertical relations between parents and children giving way to the horizontal relations between couples.

"The relations between couples have become the primary bond to maintain the family," Xu said. "Marriage quality and family cohesion have greater weight when people appraise their own living standards."

Last year, Xu joined a local family-welfare investigation group in a survey of 500 couples, who were required to rate 10 facets of marital need.

The survey showed that the percentage who said they were "very unsatisfied" or "not very satisfied" was only 4 percent, while the percentage who said they "very satisfied" or "relatively satisfied" was 90 percent. Among the 10 items for appraisal, confidence in their spouse got the highest rating from the couples.

As well as the subjective appraisal, the investigation also covered conflicts between couples. It showed that "failure to accept responsibilities" and "violation of marital obligations" constituted the major causes of family crises.

Relations between parents and children are also an important index for judging the harmony between family members.

According to the survey, about 90 percent of parents consider themselves to be "very competent" or "relatively competent," while the same percentage of children agree with the way their parents educated them. And 72 percent of the children agreed that their father and/or mother is "the best in the world."

The investigation results had a certain reliability because the parents were not present when the children were interviewed, Xu said.

Social Support

Where do people go for support when families are confronted with economic or mental problems?

The study on the status of women in Shanghai surveyed 1,921 married people and found that 72.2 percent of families still get economic support from the extended family network to different degrees.

The family problems defined in the family-welfare sample investigation include lack of money, child-rearing, education, looking for a job, family disputes, mental disturbances as well as the need for legal consultations.

The poll showed that about 33.4 percent people surveyed would turn to their friends for help to solve the above problems. The local community is the choice of about 19.2 percent, while only 6.4 percent turn for help to their work unit, which took care of almost every aspect of life 20 years ago.

But when people find themselves in a severe economic plight, the social support system is indispensable.

According to the survey, many people do not just obtain support resources from the social network. Many also take part in volunteer activities or give donations. Although women did not give so much constructive advice to the government, communities and work units, they gave more donations.

This article first appeared in this year's fifth issue of Xinmin Weekly.

(China Daily February 17, 2003)