Min Bo-gyeong, the Head of Quality of Life Group, has concluded that it is necessary to prepare regional-centered strategies for enhancing people’s well-being in her study, because among “living conditions”, “health” and “leisure” were major factors positively affecting the quality of life (happiness) in urban areas, while “financial security” was in non-urban areas.
With satisfaction (5-point scale) for living conditions of the residence for all respondents by sector, the “health” (3.70) was ranked #1, followed by safety (3.50), environment (3.44), social relationship (3.43), education (3.43), leisure (3.40), and financial security (3.31) in this order. Political takeaways considering the difference between urban and non-urban areas include (1) the need for strategies to enhance people’s well-being in response to the increasing population risk; (2) the need for region-oriented strategies reflecting regional characteristics; (3) the need for continuous studies on happiness from a regional point of view.
“Region is a critical variable closely associated with people’s actual lives. When local extinction is concerned, in-depth studies regarding influence of local residency conditions and satisfaction on happiness are required,” explains Min. “Region-oriented strategies reflecting regional characteristics and policy demands may be useful solutions.”
In this study, the nationwide satisfaction of living conditions was referred; difference in happiness factors between urban and non-urban areas was sought based on NAFI’s 2020 Korean Happiness Survey (respondents: males and females aged ≥ 15, n = 13,824); and residential regions of respondents were classified into urban and non-urban areas according to administrative districts defined by the Statistics Korea for finding out difference by region.
* “National Future Strategic Insight” is a brief report which is issued every two weeks to provide strategic insights for our future based on in-depth analysis of major issues made by professional researchers at the National Assembly Futures Institute (NAFI)
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