Abstract: The study was to delineate the change of life satisfaction, perceived controllability, financial satisfaction and explore the mutual relationship between these variables of Chinese from 1990 to 2007 via the research program of ‘Survey of World Value’. The results showed that gender and time of survey had interactive effect on life satisfaction; time of survey and year of birth had interactive effect on life satisfaction and perceived controllability; moreover, both time of survey and year of birth had main effect on financial satisfaction. In addition, life satisfaction, perceived controllability and financial satisfaction had significant changes during the survey in four different time spot; meanwhile, financial satisfaction and perceived controllability significantly predicted life satisfaction.

Key words: subjective well-being, life satisfaction, financial satisfaction, perceived controllability