Happy Colombia, Unhappy Bogota (urban-rural happiness gradient in Colombia)

• We use the 1998, 2012, and 2018 Colombian World Values Survey • The effect size of the happiness urban penalty is weak -.25 for cities > 500k • The effect size of the happiness urban penalty is large -.4 to -.9 for Bogota. The exploration of life satisfaction across urban-rural gradients has become increasingly important in understanding the nuanced relationship between well-being and geographical settings. Yet many Latin American countries have not received dedicated attention yet. We use the 1998, 2012, and 2018 Colombian World Values Survey to study urban-rural happiness gradient. This is a first such study in Colombia using a dataset with adequate urbanism measures and controlling for SWB predictors. According to economic theories, the Global South cities including Colombian cities are expected to promote more happiness compared to rural areas since cities are the locus of economic activities and offer plenty of opportunities (e.g., jobs and education). We find evidence to the contrary. The effect size of the happiness urban penalty is weak -0.25 for cities > 500k, and large -0.4 to -0.9 for Bogota on 1-10 happiness scale. Results are correlational as in any non-(quasi-)experimental study.