This chapter provides an analysis of the Chinese General Social Surveys of 2005 and 2010 with a focus on “felt-suffering” as measured by poor health, physical suffering, and mental suffering. All three of these measures increased from 2005 to 2010. During the five-year span, worsening living conditions for older people, lower-status people, and those who lived in less-developed regions were the main factors for the increase in poor health. Enlarged socioeconomic inequalities were the leading cause to the increase in physical and mental suffering. The effects of gender, education, and social disconnection on felt-suffering are persistently strong in both 2005 and 2010.
