Chapter 1 Multilateral Wellbeing and Inequality Measurement with Ordered Categorical Data: Health, Consumption and the Aging Process in China

Wellbeing evaluation using ordered categorical response data is hazardous given the scale dependent nature of most measures of wellbeing and inequality. Here, scale independent instruments for measuring levels of wellbeing and inequalities between groups in multidimensional ordered categorical environments are introduced and applied in a study of health and consumption wellbeing and the aging process in twenty‐first century China. Urban/rural location, gender, age and the availability of welfare support were considered circumstances in what is in essence a study of equality of opportunity in the acquisition of health and consumption wellbeing in Chinas’ aging population. Older populations are found to experience diminished and increasingly diverse wellbeing outcomes that are, to some extent, ameliorated by welfare support.