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Subjective Well-Being in Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia – Rural-Urban Differences and Cross-National Comparison

The importance of measuring subjective aspects of well-being for a more accurate assessment of the quality of life has been increasingly recognized in theory and empirical studies. In this paper ; we analyze and compare subjective well-being (SWB) in rural and urban areas of four countries in the post-Yugoslav space that were included in Round 9 (2018) of the European Social Survey (ESS) ; two members of the European Union (EU) ; Croatia and Slovenia ; and two non-EU countries ; Montenegro and Serbia. We have constructed the Subjective Well- being Index (SWI) based on available ESS items ; as a more concise version of VanderWeele’s Flourishing Index (2017). Our SWI consists of three domains: (1) happiness and life satisfaction ; (2) mental and physical health ; and (3) financial and material stability. Results indicate that ; regardless of the settlement type ; the respondents from two EU countries have a higher perceived SWI than those from two non-EU countries. Rural-urban differences were found in all four countries ; with urban respondents scoring significantly higher on the SWI than their rural counterparts. This research fills the gap in SWB literature in these countries and their rural and urban areas ; as well as offers a new comparative insight between them.

subjective well-being ; Croatia ; Montenegro ; Serbia ; Slovenia ; rural-urban comparison ; European Social Survey

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