Rural-urban differences in life satisfaction: Evidence from the European Union

Regional Studies. This paper uses data from the European Values Study 2008 to investigate rural-urban differences in life satisfaction across the European Union. Rural dwellers were found to have a significantly higher life satisfaction than city dwellers when holding socio-economic factors constant. This is systematically observed across three European Union country clusters defined by their level of affluence (gross domestic product (GDP)). With this background, the latter part of the paper explores the factors behind the higher life satisfaction in rural areas, focusing on differences in levels of insecurity, frames of comparison and levels of social interaction.