Marriage affects Chinese women's happiness most, and women in their first marriage feel the happiest, according to the recently published 2006 Chinese Women's Life Survey, China's first blue book on female's life.

 

The report was drawn from a questionnaire about Chinese women's life quality conducted by Huakun Women’s Life Survey Center and the Women of China magazine. The questionnaire focused on women aged between 20 and 70 with middle or high incomes and strong consumer power from the eight big cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Changsha, Chengdu, Nanning, Harbin, and Xi'an.

 

The survey points out that 45.6 percent of respondents think their marriage is happy; about 20 percent show mutual respect with their husbands in daily life; 32 percent feel unromantic; and less than 2 percent describe their marriage as indifferent or painful.

 

The questionnaire counts the respondents' scores based on 5 multiple-choice questions, namely extremely happy, happy, so-so, not very happy, and unhappy. The respondents' general sense of happiness on life scored at 3.87, while the happiest women are those in their first marriage with the sense scoring at 3.92. Widows have the lowest sense of happiness with the average mark only being 3. Therefore, marriage life is the most important element influencing women's quality of life.

 

(Chinanews.cn September 5, 2006)