Spatial evolution and driving factors for the people's livelihood development level in China, 2010-2021

In the new era, the law of spatial evolution for the development of people's livelihood is of great theoretical and practical significance for fostering people's livelihood development and creating general prosperity in China. Based on the data from 2010 to 2021, we examined the spatial evolution and influence mechanism of the Chinese people's livelihood development level by using methods including the fixed base range entropy weight method, standard deviation ellipse, kernel density estimation, spatial Markov chain, and geographically and temporally weighted regression. The findings show that the Chinese people's livelihood development level has improved remarkably, with eastern region having the highest level, followed by central region, western region, and finally northeastern region; the people's livelihood development level in China is related to regional development to a certain extent, and the high-value and low-value clusters are concentrated, with the Yangtze River Delta and Beijing- Tianjin- Hebei region being stable hot spots, and Sichuan a stable cold spot. Additionally, the focus of the livelihood development has shifted from the northeast to the southwest, showing a gradual spatial trend, and the difference in the livelihood development among the four major regions is gradually increasing, with a trend of polarization between the country and the western region. Moreover, the shift in the focus of Chinese people's livelihood level has been affected by the neighboring provinces. Finally, the economic development, science and technology progress, aging population, and fiscal decentralization have positive effects, whereas urbanization has a negative effect on people's livelihood development, and the effects of these five factors exhibit spatial variations. © 2023 Science Press. All rights reserved.