Urbanization and subjective well-being of native urban residents: evidence from the “new-type urbanization pilot policy” in China

Dongmei Guo (), Shuning Kong (), Xin Li (), Yiming Liu () and Weizeng Sun ()
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Dongmei Guo: Central University of Finance and Economics
Shuning Kong: Renmin University of China
Xin Li: Central University of Finance and Economics
Yiming Liu: Central University of Finance and Economics
Weizeng Sun: Nanjing Audit University

The Annals of Regional Science, 2025, vol. 74, issue 1, No 5, 27 pages

Abstract: Abstract Urbanization is a process whereby rural populations move to urban areas and enjoy the benefits brought by urban development. Existing research has placed a primary focus on the welfare of rural–urban migrants during the urbanization; whereas, the native urban residents have aroused minor attention. With the “New-type Urbanization pilot policy” in China as a quasi-experiment, this study presents more insights into how urbanization affects the subjective well-being of native urban residents. Exploiting a nationally representative survey dataset of China and performing the staggered difference-in-differences design, this paper confirms that the urbanization in the New Era of China significantly improves the subjective well-being by nearly 3.82%. The mechanisms through which the policy enhances subjective well-being are explored via the local public services provision channel and the income channel. As revealed by the result of the in-depth heterogeneity effects, the effect is greater among female, less educated and lower income urban residents, and it exerts a geographical effect on areas at a lower pre-urbanization level.

JEL-codes: I31 R13 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s00168-024-01337-3

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