People who live in towns or in the countryside tend to report a higher level of happiness and satisfaction with life than those in big cities, and now Science backs up this sentiment.
This is a study of the University of Southern Denmarkpublished in the magazine Applied Research in Quality of Life. Research argues that well-being in urban areas is affected due to lower social ties, with higher rates of new residents and fewer retired people, who tend to be happier.
“We found that most of the gap between urban and rural areas in life satisfaction can be explained by less bond and less access to natural services in cities. “This confirms the theory that urbanism produces communities with weaker family and friendship ties,” the authors say.
Researchers maintain that improved mental health as a result of spend time in nature and in natural environments, including urban green spaces, it also plays an important role.
The researchers used data from a survey of 2,000 people who were asked to rate their degree of satisfaction with life.
Residents of rural areas were significantly happier than city dwellers. One of the findings was that income differences did not have a significant impact.
The main factor was limited access to nature, responsible for 37% of the difference in happiness between urban and rural areas. The lesser social bond explained 22% and the lower number of retirees in the cities was responsible for 14%.
