Does Urbanization Increase Happiness in Africa?

ABSTRACT Over the past three decades, Africa has been rapidly urbanizing. This urbanization has been fueled by a massive exodus of rural populations to urban centers in search of better living conditions. However, there is no consensus on the consequences of this rapid urbanization on the various development indicators. In this paper, we appreciate the effect of urbanization on happiness in Africa. To achieve this, we specify and estimate a panel data model from a sample of 34 countries over the period 2006–2019. The estimation is done by several techniques: the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), the Fixed Effects (FE), the Random Effects (RE), and the Two Step Least Squares (2SLS) methods. Overall, our results show that urbanization, approximated by the rate of the population living in urban areas, significantly reduces happiness in Africa captured by the life ladder. This result remains robust when quantile regression (QR) is used as an alternative estimation technique, thus indicating improving the urban living environment through physical infrastructural development and environmental sanitation.