Explorative Qualitative Study on Regional Factors Affecting Subjective Well-being of Rural Residents

Abstract

In this study, we conducted a qualitative research to investigate how regional living conditions affect residents' subjective well-being. We did interviews with 21 people who lived in Suzu city, a rural area located at the northern edge of the Noto peninsula, Japan. A series of interviews was recorded and was transcribed after the interviews for coding and analysis. By coding the transcribed scripts, we found some common regional factors which affect residents' well-being. In general, factors related to natural capital and time usage have positive affect to well-being. On the other hand, factors related to social capital have both positive and negative influences to well-being while factors related to physical capital have mainly negative influences on well-being. These results suggest that we should add some regional factors reflecting characteristics of rural life when we conduct questionnaire survey to investigate residents' well-being in rural area.