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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]