Ways that Social Change Predicts Personal Quality of Life

Byline: Chau-kiu Cheung (1), Kwok Leung (1) Keywords: Quality of life; Quality of work life; Societal quality of life; Social change; Adaptation; Need fulfillment; Buffering Abstract: A notable way that social change affects personal quality of life would rely on the person's experience with social change. This experience may influence societal quality of life and quality of work life, which may in turn affect personal quality of life. Additionally, the experience of social change is possibly less detrimental to personal quality of life later in the presence of higher existing personal quality of life. These influences over time become transparent through a three-wave panel study of 531 working people in Hong Kong, China. Findings show that although social change experienced did not generally impair subsequent quality of life, it tended to be more detrimental to the person with lower quality of life before. In addition, social change experienced tended to erode societal quality of life and quality of work life experienced, which appeared to be predictors of personal quality of life. Hence, there are possible ways for social change to predict personal quality of life. Author Affiliation: (1) City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong Article History: Registration Date: 04/05/2009 Received Date: 26/11/2008 Accepted Date: 03/05/2009 Online Date: 23/05/2009