The core of this book is the concept ofhuodegan (), which refers to a sense of gain that includes perceived individual wellbeing and social development. Given that measuring sense of gain has become critical in the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics and along with the social indicators movement in the last decade, building an index for evaluating sense of gain becomes critical. Apart from reviewing the existing index systems for social development and policy and the previous studies exploring the sense of gain, this book highlights the importance of combining Chinese socio-cultural features, established theories, and index systems.

Wenjie Duan is a professor of social work in the Department of Social Work, Social and Public Administration School, East China University of Science and Technology. He obtained a Ph.D. in Applied Social Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong. He was appointed as Editorial Board member for Research on Social Work Practice and Journal of Evidence-based Social Work and Associate Editor for Frontiers in Psychology, as well as the reviewer of more than 30 peer-reviewed journals. He was awarded Ph.D. in advance and the Chow Yei Ching Graduate Studies Scholarship, the Top Honors for Ph.D., as the sole winner in the areas of Humanities and Social Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong.
At present, he mainly engages in evidence-based social work with strengths perspective, social indicators and psychometrics, as well as quality of life promotion. He specializes in the combined emicethic approach to develop intercultural theory and measurements. Then,applying these theories and measurements to different contexts, conducting in-depth studies to clarify the internal mechanisms, constructing intervention programs at the individual, community, and society levels to facilitate the improvement of the quality of life, health level, well-being, and positive growth. The outcomes are published in SSCI journals such as Research on Social Work PracticeBritish Journal of Social WorkChildren and Youth Services Review, Social Indicator Research, Journal of Happiness Studies, Quality of Life Research, etc.
He has published 2 Chinese monographs (coauthored), wrote 2 chapters of the monographs in English and 2 chapters of the Chinese, published 64 SSCI papers, and 18 Chinese-SSCI journal articles. Among them, there was one highly cited ESI paper, 3 full-text reprinted papers by the Information Center for Social Science of Renmin University of China, and 1 full-text reprinted paper by Xinhua Digest (online version). The cumulative impact factor was 108.151, and the cumulative impact factor for five years was 153.523. The Google-based citation number was 1462, and the I10 index was 36.

Why Does Research on Huodegan (Sense of Gain) Matter?.- Psychological Basis of Sense of Gain.- Sociological Basis of Sense of Gain.- Methodology for the Construction of the Sense of Gain Index System.- Theory and Index Structure of Sense of Gain.- Development of the Huodegan Index.- Applying the Sense of Gain Framework to CGSS Data.- Influencing Factors of Sense of Gain.- Application of the Huodegan Index: Measuring Both Individual Wellbeing and Social Development.