Exploring the relationship between life quality and the perceptions of living-environment crises

Background: Two common consequences of rapid economic development in developing countries are the improvement of residents' quality of life but also environmental destruction. This study focuses on the relationship between residents' perceptions on the life quality and their perception of environmental crises in China. The purpose of this study is to answer why people in developing countries have relatively high tolerance for environmental pollution caused by rapid economic development.

Methods: Using ordered logistic regression models and the multi-level mixed effect ordinal regression model, and the data of the 2014 China Labour-force Dynamics Survey, 10,849 responses were analysed to evaluate public perceptions of living-environment crises. Specifically, perceptions relating to the following four living-environment crises were evaluated: (1) (un)employment; (2) public safety; (3) infectious disease; (4) pollution.

Results: We found that respondents with higher levels of subjective well-being, social status, and sense of neighbourhood security expressed a lower level of concern for living-environment crises. The concern of urban residents was also significantly higher than that of rural residents for living-environment crisis. For rural respondents, neighbourhood population density was negatively correlated with the perception of employment, public safety, and infectious disease crises. For urban respondents, neighbourhood population density was positively correlated to the perception of public safety and pollution crises, and neighbourhood average income was positively correlated to the perception of infectious disease and pollution risks.

Conclusions: Rapid economic development has greatly improved people's well-being, but it has also produced many environmental pollution problems. To a certain extent, the improvement of the well-being will alleviate people's worries about environmental pollution caused by the development of economy.