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People in the Nordic region are more satisfied with life in big cities than others in the EU
Are you young, female, well-educated, employed, and living in a big city in a rich EU country? Then you’re probably among those most satisfied with life.
If, on the other hand, you lack both a job and education, you are probably more satisfied with life if you live in a larger city in a Nordic EU country than people in the same situation in other EU countries.
That’s according to a new study that compared groups of citizens in 25 EU countries and asked how satisfied they are with their lives.
Large differences
“There are quite large and interesting differences between Nordic and other EU countries, in how satisfied different groups of the population actually are,” says NTNU professor Fredrik Carlsen.
He and Statistics Norway researcher Stefan Leknes are behind the new study.
It shows that if you are young, single, well-educated, and employed, you are more likely to be satisfied with your life if you live in a larger city than in a smaller city or town.
People who have less education or are unemployed think life is best outside the big cities.
Women who live and work in the major cities of the richest EU countries are among those who are most satisfied with their lives.
People are more satisfied in welfare states
Sweden, Finland, and Denmark fare better than other EU countries in how satisfied people are with life where they live. The elderly, women, couples with children, those with less education, and the unemployed are relatively better off in the Nordic EU countries.
Similarly, the negative consequences of unemployment and challenges related to age, housing situation, and the like are less in the Nordic region.
One possible explanation is that welfare states that function well make it possible to live anywhere and at the same time have a reasonably good standard of living.
Another is the system of wage negotiations in the Nordic region. Trade unions, employers, and authorities seek to safeguard all groups – including low-paid and less educated people.
Single women with more education are the group that has benefited most from the development in the big cities over time.
Housing, pollution, and crime
“We see that, relative to other groups, women who often work in low-wage occupations, the unemployed, and people without education are more satisfied with life in the Nordic countries than in other EU countries. In general, it's also better to live in the largest cities here than in the rest of the country,” says Carlsen, who works at the Department of Economics.
The disadvantages of major EU cities, such as cramped housing, high housing prices, crime, pollution, and noise, are not as problematic in the Nordics.
Nevertheless, while the Nordic EU countries are better at lifting up groups with a lower standard of living, single people aren’t as well taken care of in the Nordics, according to Carlsen.
Failing single people
We already know that, in general, living with a partner is better than living alone. In the Nordics, people who live as couples are clearly more satisfied with life.
“This means there's one group that loses in the Nordics, and that's single people. In contrast to countries further south in Europe, lonely people and people without close family easily end up on the outside in the Nordics. That's a challenge,” says Carlsen.
He emphasises that this is the only result in the study showing that the Nordic ideal of equality fails and leaves people worse off than in other EU countries.
Happiness and contentment are hot topics
The NTNU study is part of the rapidly growing body of research on happiness and how satisfied people are with life.
Every year, the University of Oxford, Gallup, and the United Nations publish the World Happiness Report. It analyses data on people’s well-being from 140 countries.
The purpose? To let people know where people are happiest, and how we can create more happiness for ourselves and others.
In such studies, people’s answers about how satisfied they are with life are used to measure happiness and standard of living.
Leknes and Carlsen have added a new twist: Data on place of residence is analysed together with data from the Eurobarometer 2010-2019. It includes citizens from 25 countries. More than 50,000 respondents over the age of 15 per country are included. The data thus covers over one million people.
Same pattern as in Norway
They use the answers to investigate important questions in economic geography: Where is the best place to live, and for whom? Are people more satisfied with life in larger or smaller cities, or in the countryside? And what differences are there in perceived quality of life between gender, age, marital status, and family affiliation in different countries?
Previously, the two researchers studied Norway, and found that Oslo clearly differs from the rest of the country.
Young people with higher education are relatively more satisfied with life in the capital. Older people with a low level of education are more satisfied outside Oslo.
Now the researchers see the same pattern in the EU.
Typical male occupations disappeared
"When it comes to gender, enthusiasm for the big city is linked to the country’s income level,” says Carlsen.
He notes that the researchers looked at development trends between groups in each country.
“Our theory is that industry in cities in rich countries has declined. Thus, there are fewer and fewer traditional male jobs. Look at Oslo, there are almost none of these kinds of jobs left. When a country becomes richer, occupations that were formerly and traditionally male have been replaced by service industries,” he says.
New opportunities for women
When jobs become less tailored to men, new opportunities open up for both genders. Single women with higher education are the group that has benefited the most from the development in the big cities over time, according toCarlsen.
But again, that does not mean they are happier than others.
“It just means that they've benefited positively in some of these countries from this de-industrialisation. In countries that are not so rich, the phasing out of urban industry has lagged a little behind,” he says.
Many factors affect satisfaction
Many surveys use few variables to explain people’s views on city life versus rural life. Carlsen and Leknes have gone deeper.
To find out why people prefer one aspect of their lives over another, they include characteristics such as age, gender, marital status, education, and unemployment in their analysis.
No one has included all these variables at once before, according to the researchers. Fredrik Carlsen gives an example:
"If you have a partner, you also often have children. But if you as a researcher only include one of these variables in a study, you can't know whether you'll find the effect of having a partner, or of having children. If you include both, the information you get is increasingly correct.”
Tools for politics and government
In general, all countries’ governments have a goal of equalising living standards. They do this by targeting measures towards groups that are struggling.
“Everything that explains people’s standard of living and living is important,” says Carlsen.
Studies like this offer insight into how society is developing.
“Whether there are measures the authorities should halt, things they should be aware of. But these developments won’t necessarily be the same in larger cities as in other areas,” he says.
What determines where life is best?
Of course, it’s not just gross domestic product and welfare systems that make countries different. Culture, class differences, and industry all come into play. And values such as trust in others, loyalty, and law-abiding vary greatly – even within the EU.
Cities vary in size, living conditions, social differences, pollution, travel distances, and so on.
The researchers point out that more research should be done on what affects how satisfied citizens are with their lives.
Reference:
Carlsen, F. & Leknes, S. Who are satisfied with life in cities? Evidence for 25 European countries, Urban Studies, 2025. DOI: 10.1177/00420980241310375
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Read the Norwegian version of this article on forskning.no
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