By Danielle Shanahan and P. Brown
There is good evidence that a stronger connection to nature can boost our wellbeing, but is this boost the same for people who live in urban versus rural landscapes? We carried out two large-scale surveys totalling more than 7,200 New Zealanders to unpack how people’s connection to nature is related to their wellbeing and both current and future anticipated life satisfaction for both urban and rural residents.
We find that people who live in rural landscapes have a higher connectedness to nature than urban residents, on average. We also confirm our expectation that connection to nature is linked to higher wellbeing and life satisfaction in both urban and rural areas. Interestingly, this relationship is stronger for urban dwellers, whose increase in wellbeing due to nature connectedness is higher than for rural residents.
We then take a look at patterns within the rural sample to explore whether these results differ for people with different rural lifestyles – specifically, commercial farmers and hobby farmers. We find that nature connection is associated with wellbeing and a person’s current life satisfaction for both groups.
Our results suggest that fostering a connection to nature is an effective way of supporting wellbeing and life satisfaction no matter where people live, but that it may be a more effective strategy for urban residents rather than rural residents. Overall, this research provides greater insights into the nuances of how a connection to nature relates to wellbeing and life satisfaction for people with different lifestyles.
Relational Thinking 