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Urban malaise or unhappiness with city life is common in developed countries. City dwellers, particularly those in the largest metropolitan areas, are reported to be the least satisfied with their lives. Using the US General Social Survey (1972-2016), this paper explores the latest happiness trends. The results confirm earlier findings of urban malaise: Americans in general are happiest in smaller cities and rural areas. However, the advantage of rural living is declining - rural Americans are becoming less happy relative to urbanites. Most interestingly, the results show that the latest generation, termed 'Millennials' (1982-2004), as opposed to earlier generations, are the happiest in large cities (an estimated magnitude larger than earning an additional US$100,000 in family income annually). The possible reasons for this trend are explored and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Profound changes in gender roles have taken place over the past several decades in the United States. Women’s roles have changed most: women are marrying later in life and at lower rates, having fewer children, and working more outside of the household. “Career women” are the new normal and housewifery has gone out of fashion. At the same time, women have become less happy. We use the US General Social Surveys from 1972 to 2014 to explore these latest trends. We find that, until recently, women were happier to be housewives or to work part-time than full-time, especially, women who are older, married, with children, in middle or upper class, and living in suburbs or smaller places. The effect size of housewifery on subjective wellbeing (SWB) is mild to moderate, at about a fourth to a third of the effect of being unemployed. Therefore, we argue that one possible reason for the decline in average happiness for women was increased labor force participation. Yet, the happiness advantage of housewifery is declining among younger cohorts and career women may become happier than housewives in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the working hours-happiness relationship of Latinos living in the United States and compares it with that of the host society. We find that immigrant Latinos have adopted American work-happiness relationships while having lower levels of subjective well-being. Acculturation plays an important role not only with respect to work attitudes, but also to social status, and it is the latter that affects the well-being of Latinos of color. Future quality-of-life research needs to analyze whether the dichotomy between work attitude and social status will persist or whether this vibrant and increasing group of immigrants who are so vital to the U.S. economy will both adapt to host society values and begin to introduce positive change in those values in a society where multiculturalism is on the rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the life satisfaction and working hours of Latin Americans and U.S. Americans using the AmericasBarometer and General Social Survey. While there are many common determinants of happiness, hours worked is not among them. Differences in cultural values, especially the distinction between collectivism (familism) and individualism that has long been a foundation of social development theory, may be why married Latin American males are less happy than married U.S. American males when working longer hours. The distinction is not apparent among females or the unmarried. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from the World Values Survey and AmericasBarometer are used in ordinal logistic models to evaluate life satisfaction in rural and urban areas in Latin America. Our findings indicate that, unlike the United States, in Latin America there is no evidence of rural–urban happiness differences. In Latin America familism is the key driving force, aspatial and transcending location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study shows, for the first time, that city unhappiness is common across the world. We use the World Values Survey cumulative dataset 1981–2020 from www.worldvaluessurvey.org. In all developed countries, without exception, we find that city dwellers are not happier than rural residents. • Using the World Values Survey (WVS) cumulative dataset 1981-2020, we test the urban-rural happiness gradient hypothesis. • We find that in developed countries city dwellers are not happier than rural residents. • This finding contradicts a common belief, especially in economics (e.g., Glaeser, 2011), that cities are triumphant and happy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides new evidence to the urban malaise (unhappiness) hypothesis. A new key finding is added: Urban upbringing is associated with lower happiness levels later in life. This outcome is above and beyond the effect associated with living currently in a city. Strikingly, the negative effect of urbanicity in one's youth is about as strong statistically, and practically (effect size), as the effect of urbanicity given one's current place of residence. In addition, our findings show that there may be a happiness benefit to growing up on a farm. The present study is inspired by Lederbogen et al. (2011) who showed that growing up in a city has a negative lasting effect in a person's life. We also find interactive effects: people who grew up in larger areas but live in smaller areas have lower levels of happiness than those who grew up in smaller areas and continue to live there. There is also an interactive effect with age: older people are happier if they grew up on a farm. These results aim to stimulate discussion by challenging the mainstream pro-urban view that people are happier in cities. This study is based on U.S. data, thus our results may not generalize to other countries or historical contexts. • Using the General Social Survey (GSS) dataset from 1972 to 2016, we provide new evidence to the urban malaise hypothesis. • Urban upbringing results in lower happiness levels later in life. • This effect is above and beyond the unhappiness associated with living currently in a city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World Values Survey data is used to test the association between urbanization, operationalized as population size, and subjective well-being, operationalized as life satisfaction, in the case of Egypt. Regression results show that the smallest settlements have the highest positive effect on subjective well-being compared to the large urban centers. These results are persistent even after controlling for an extensive set of socio-demographic variables. Another important finding is that the two main urban and economic centers of the country, the Greater Cairo and Alexandria regions, generate lower subjective well-being when compared to the more rural regions (Lower and Upper Egypt). These results are both unexpected and compelling, especially in the context of a developing country such as Egypt—previous research argues that cities should generate higher subjective well-being when compared to rural and township settlements in such a context. Our empirical findings show otherwise and provide a novel and crucial contribution to the literature on the subjective wellbeing- urbanization nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]