The Relationship Between Rural-Urban Place of Residence and Subjective Well-Being is Nonlinear and its Substantive Significance is Questionable

Abstract

Research on rural-urban differences in subjective well-being revealed inconsistent findings. I argue that the inconsistencies in the literature may be due to very small effect sizes and nonlinear associations. The aims of the present contribution were twofold: (1) to determine the effect size of the relationship between living in rural-urban areas and subjective well-being; (2) to investigate whether categories of rural-urban areas are nonlinearly related to subjective well-being. The present research used data from 507,452 participants from 115 countries provided by the European Values Study Trend File 1981-2017 and the World Values Survey time-series dataset (1981-2022). Self-reports of satisfaction with life and happiness were used to measure subjective well-being. Multilevel mixed-effects linear regression analysis revealed that, after adjusting for important sociodemographic variables such as gender, age, education, employment status, marital status, and income, the relationship between rural-urban place of residence and subjective well-being was statistically significant. However, the magnitude of these associations (i.e., effect size) was very small or even negligible. Moreover, pairwise comparisons of the estimated marginal means for life satisfaction and happiness revealed a pattern of nonlinear relationships. The results of the current research question the practical significance and usefulness of the relationship between rural-urban place of residence alone and subjective well-being.