Although more and more people choose to live in (large) cities, people in the Western world generally report lower levels of subjective well-being in urban areas than in rural areas. This article examines whether these urban–rural differences in subjective well-being are (partly) driven by selective migration patterns. To this end, we utilise residential mobility data from the United Kingdom based on 12 waves of the British Household Panel Survey. We explore urban–rural differences in life satisfaction as well as changes in life satisfaction of people moving from rural areas to urban areas (or vice versa), hereby paying specific attention to selection and composition effects. The results show that selective migration can, at least partly, explain the urban–rural subjective well-being differential through the selection of less satisfied people in cities and more satisfied people in the countryside. While the average life satisfaction of urban–rural migrants is higher compared to the life satisfaction of rural–urban migrants, we do not find – on average – long-lasting life satisfaction effects of migration. At the same time, there are differences between sociodemographic groups in that we find that a move from the countryside to the city is positively associated with the life satisfaction of students while it is negatively associated with the life satisfaction of people with a non-tertiary education.

尽管越来越多的人选择住在（大城市）城市，但西方世界的人们普遍报告称，城市地区的主观幸福感水平低于农村地区。本文探讨了这些主观幸福感的城乡差异是否（部分）是由选择性迁移模式驱动的。为此，我们利用了基于英国家庭小组调查的 12 次浪潮的英国住宅流动性数据。我们探索城乡居民生活满意度的差异以及人们从农村地区迁移到城市地区（反之亦然）的生活满意度变化，从而特别关注选择和构成效应。结果表明，选择性迁移至少可以部分地 通过选择城市中满意度较低的人和农村中满意度较高的人来解释城乡主观幸福感的差异。虽然城乡流动人口的平均生活满意度高于城乡流动人口的生活满意度，但我们没有发现——平均而言——流动对生活满意度的长期影响。同时，社会人口群体之间的差异在于，我们发现从农村到城市的迁移与学生的生活满意度呈正相关，而与非高等教育人群的生活满意度呈负相关。 . 平均而言，我们没有发现移民对生活满意度的长期影响。同时，社会人口群体之间的差异在于，我们发现从农村到城市的迁移与学生的生活满意度呈正相关，而与非高等教育人群的生活满意度呈负相关。 . 平均而言，我们没有发现移民对生活满意度的长期影响。同时，社会人口群体之间的差异在于，我们发现从农村到城市的迁移与学生的生活满意度呈正相关，而与非高等教育人群的生活满意度呈负相关。 .