Is the slowdown of China's economic growth affecting multidimensional well-being dynamics?

• Different dimensions of wellbeing present heterogeneous trends, encouraging to resort to a multidimensional index for an inclusive overview on Chinese development based on household microdata. • Between 2011 and 2015 the average level of multidimensional wellbeing stagnated. Although a slight decrease in well-being is nominally recorded, the overall trend is stable when controlling for other phenomenon (such as the ageing of the sample). • Individual characteristics (such as age and gender) and residence matter in terms of multidimensional wellbeing. As expected, wellbeing decreases in old age following a non-linear trend, and women record lower outcomes too. Inhabitants of coastal provinces and urban citizens (provided they possess an urban hukou) have higher than average scores. The impact of these characteristics is not homogeneous across the distribution of wellbeing. • Heilongjiang province, an emblematic case of economic stagnation in the north-east, reports a significantly worsening well-being trend, significantly different from the remaining "pooled" data. On the contrary, the catching-up Guizhou province records faster growth in the multidimensional wellbeing index. After many years of outstanding GDP growth and structural changes, China is now facing an economic slowdown. This paper aims to analyse the effects of this slowdown on individual well-being, from a multidimensional and provincial perspective. The empirical analysis is based on data obtained from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, for the 2011 and 2015 waves. The notions of moderate prosperity, harmony and balanced growth pursued by the Chinese Government are used to select nine dimensions. These dimensions – based on 56 variables – are aggregated into an individual well-being index using the Multidimensional Synthesis of Indicators technique. The econometric results reveal that, in the 2011–2015 period, individual multidimensional well-being stagnated; moreover, some dimensions were affected much more than others, according to individual characteristics (e.g. age, gender) and geographical differences (e.g. urban/rural, east/west provinces). This creates new challenges for the central and provincial governments of China, in their pursuit of a more 'harmonious' and balanced development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]