Small acts with big impacts: Does garbage classification improve subjective well-being in rural China?

Abstract

Solid waste has surged in rural China, home to more than 540 million people. To preserve the environment, the Chinese government has piloted garbage classification programs. However, little is known about whether and to what extent classifying garbage affects people's subjective well-being—should its effects be positive, people would be more amenable to classifying garbage, making it easier to entrench garbage classification practices and programs and ultimately improve the environment. Accordingly, we analyze the impact of garbage classification on subjective well-being using the 2020 China Land Economic Survey data. An endogenous treatment regression model is utilized to address self-selection into garbage classification programs. We find that this simple and somewhat mundane practice can significantly improve people's happiness and life satisfaction. These results reaffirm the compound benefits of allocating more public resources to accelerate the adoption of garbage classification in rural areas.