A recent study of 156,000 British adults found that city life was associated with lower levels of social and economic satisfaction and general well-being among residents aged 40 and over.

“We found that city dwellers have the highest incomes. However, we find no parallel psychological advantages. On the contrary, residents of highly urban areas perform worse on all psychological parameters that include well-being, social satisfaction and economic satisfaction,” wrote lead author Adam Finnemann of the University of Amsterdam and his colleagues in their study, which was published in Scientific advances.

Researchers predict that the proportion of people living in cities will rise to 68% by 2050. In the 1910s, the increase was only 10%.

In high-income and developed countries, previous studies have shown that people in rural areas reported higher levels of happiness than their urban counterparts, what economists call the “paradox of rural happiness.” Cities and city life, on the other hand, can be overwhelming, indifferent and lonely, and come with numerous disadvantages, such as higher levels of air pollution, traffic problems that cause congestion and longer commutes, and even higher prevalence of poverty and infectious diseases.

Despite these drawbacks, cities are popular because they allow people to live in close proximity, which could lead to a greater exchange of ideas, knowledge and creativity. Since cities are known as technological hubs that promise immense wealth and innovation, Finnemann and his team investigated whether cities fulfill the promise of providing their residents with more social and economic opportunities – or not.

The team examined data from a large sample of 156,000 adults aged 40 to 70 from the UK Biobank. The average age of the study participants was 55, and more than half were women. Overall, 97 percent of them were white.

The authors found that people in rural areas are overall happier despite the high population density, social opportunities and high incomes in cities.

“This points to a larger puzzle that we call the ‘paradox of urban attractiveness’ to highlight the contrast between the popularity of cities and the psychological state of their residents,” they explained. “The increasing inequality in social and economic satisfaction is consistent with theories of urban accumulation that show that cities disproportionately benefit the already advantaged.”

“The lack of urban happiness is strong in North America, Western Europe and much of Oceania. Urban economic dissatisfaction is consistent with and can be explained by the increased cost of living, particularly housing prices,” the authors write. “We think it is likely that economic struggle is becoming more generalized as a result of the global housing crisis.”

“Suburbs and peri-urban areas have particular characteristics that distinguish them from highly urbanised and rural regions. In practice, our study raises concerns about the mental health of the 56 million Britons living in urban areas and invites further study into the possibility of geographically focused health and policy interventions to promote mental health,” they added. “In addition, drawing on existing literature on wellbeing, global inequality and the global housing crisis, we anticipate that the urban psychological issues we have identified apply beyond the UK.”