Rural dimensions of place-community experience and well-being

Abstract

Building upon the ideas of decoupling and convergence, this thesis explores the structure of place-based community experience and levels of well-being for rural residents in southern Alberta. The research objectives are to: 1) measure and identify the experiential character of rural communities within the Behavioral, Cognitive and Affective Domains of community social life, and to understand the structure and complexity of this experience; 2) assess the aggregate differences in the intensity of these experiential structures by degree of rurality as represented by Metropolitan Influenced Zones (MIZs); and 3) model the extent to which these dimensions may account for differences in well-being. Sixteen unique dimensions of variation in rural community experience are identified – partially supporting convergence – and almost no differences are found in the intensity of these dimensions by degree of rurality (MIZs). The findings show a subset of experiential dimensions to be significant predictors of well-being in rural people.