Boasting a stable and harmonious political and social environment, Dongguan is one of the ten most desirable cities to live in China. It has been listed in the top 10 of the 50 highest life qualities in Chinese cities successively in 2005 and 2006.

1. Living environment
Dongguan has developed transportation systems comprised of roads, trains and ports and exceptional networks of water, electricity, gas and communication. The comprehensive index of urban informationization is up to 71.7%. It has a wonderful ecological environment. Right now there are 16 forest gardens, 4 natural reserves, and the green ratio of the forest lands is 98.8%, while the forest coverage rate is 35.5%; the percentage of greenery coverage of the whole city is 40.7%; the percentage of greenery coverage of the built-up area is 43%. Dongguan has a beautiful environment, which was evaluated as the greenery coverage model city and the excellent tourist city of China. In November of 2006, Dongguan achieved the honorable title of "International Garden City" out of more than 350 candidate cities in the world.

2. Residents’ income
In 2007, the average urban residents’ disposable income of Dongguan was 27,025 yuan, up by 12.2% from the previous year, while the average resident net income was 11,606 yuan, up by 8.9% than the previous year. The bottom wage standard of labor employment was improved to 740 yuan per month. The average salary of all the residents was 12,372 yuan per year, with an increase of 7.9%. The average salary of the employees at work throughout the city was 35,284 yuan per year, growing at 13.3% compared with the previous year.

3. Residents’ consumption
In 2007, the sum of the consumption of the entire city was 69.589 billion yuan, increasing 19.0% over the previous year, which was very prosperous. The urban average consumption expenditure of this year was 21,545 yuan, increasing 18.2% compared with the previous year. The consumption structure increases at an accelerating speed, with concentrations of consumption in estate, auto and catering industries. The sample survey outcome of durable consumption goods suggested that there was an average of 271 air-conditioners, 82 audio sets, 272 mobile phones, 111 personal computers, 134 water heaters, and 52 cars in every 100 families. The urban average living building-area at the end of the year was 57.38 m2. The owned durable consumption goods of every 100 rural families was 178 color TV sets, 95 motor bicycles, 105 washing machines, 142 water heaters, 251 mobile phones, 95 video disc players, 223 air-conditioners and 96 personal computers.

4. Social security
Dongguan initially realized rural residents' pension insurance in China in 2000, and then in 2006 the rural residents' basic pension insurance system was primarily combined with the workers' basic pension insurance system. The basic pension insurance system covering urban and rural areas, the basic medicine insurance system and the one-child policy pension insurance system were established, which means numerous people can share the fruit of economical development owing to the construction of high-level lowest living security system. As of the end of 2007, the participation of all kinds of insurance in the city reached 14,472,600 person-time incidents and the imposed and collected funds added up to 7.731 billion yuan, with a collecting rate of 99.7%. The accumulating residual funds of previous years reach about 19.68 billion yuan, which places it at the top of the province. The average pension of retired participators of worker pension insurance and rural residents' pension insurance distinctively reach 1,226.88 yuan per month and 227.39 yuan per month.