Extended abstract
Introduction: Subjective well-being is likely to be referred to as the subjective component of quality of life, and in a way indicates the extent to which people meet their needs, the level of feeling of purposefulness in life, the level of feeling of security, and the level of health and well-being. People with higher subjective well-being are expected to hold a good feeling towards their surrounding environment, especially their residence place. In other words, there seems to be a positive relationship between subjective well-being and place loyalty. The study of this subject is of especial importance for rural areas in Iran, which have lost a large number of their population. Rural settlements as a place of residence and activity of a significant part of the country’s population, have always played an important role in agricultural production, food security, and balancing the distribution of population in the vast area of Iran. The trend of population has changed in Iran over the past few decades indicating a significant decrease in the share of rural population in the total population of the country, so that the rate of rural population in the country during the period 1956-2016 decreased from 68.6% to 25.9%; meanwhile, since 1996, the country’s rural population growth rate has been negative. Dasht-e-Arzhan rural area of Shiraz sub-province, with its suitable environmental conditions, has always had favorable status for agricultural activities; in the meantime, due to having beautiful natural landscapes, recreational and service functions have also been developed in this area. However, despite the acceptable environmental potentials, this rural area, like many other rural areas of the country, has faced a decrease in population in recent years, so that its population has decreased from 4901 to 4571 people in the period 2006-2007. Therefore, this study, examined the levels of subjective well-being and place loyalty in the selected villages of Dasht-e-Arzhan, and explained the relationship between the mentioned factors.
Method: The present study is an applied research with the descriptive-analytical approach. It investigated the characteristics and the relationship between subjective well-being and place loyalty in Dasht-e-Arzhan rural area of Shiraz sub-province. The research data were collected mainly by survey questionnaire. The setting of this study comprises the rural areas with a population of at least 100 people located in Dasht-e-Arzhan rural district, including Dasht-e-Arzhan (population: 2340), Chehel Cheshmeh Kroni (population: 1010), Bidqtar Benroud (population: 159), Tol Kare (population: 122), Zanganeh Benroud (population: 485) and Mokhtarabad Benroud (population: 167). These villages, together, make up about 94% of the population of Dasht-e-Arzhan. The analysis unit in the study is all people aged 18 and over living in the mentioned villages. The sample size is 400 people. For sampling, the percentage share of the population of each village from the total statistical population was measured and the share of each village in the sample was determined in the same proportion. Sampling was performed in each village using a simple probabilistic sampling method. Subjective well-being variables were adapted from Sam’aram et al.’s (2015) study, and place-loyalty variables were adapted from Shaykh-Baygloo’s (2020) research. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for subjective well-being variables is 0.948, for place loyalty is 0.894, and for all variables is 0.950. In order to evaluate the normality of data distribution, skewness and kurtosis indices of the studied variables were measured, all were within the range of -2, +2. Data were analyzed using one-sample T-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient, and ETA coefficient applying the SPSS software.
Findings: Of the 400 people of statistical sample, 148 (equivalent to 37%) were female and 252 (equivalent to 63%) were male. About 21% of the respondents were single and about 79% were married. These people were in the age range of 18 to 91 years and their average age was about 42 years. The birthplace of 84.5% of the villagers was in their current residence place and the rest were born in other places. The average time of residence duration in the village has been approximately 40 years. The study of the number of relevant household members indicates a diversity of the household dimension in the study area (households with one to 12 people), among which the highest frequency is related to households of four people (25.3%), one person (20.5%), and six people (15.3%), respectively. 28% of the respondents worked in agricultural occupations, 28% in service occupations, 5.5% in administrative occupations, and 38.5% in other occupations. In terms of education level, 22% of people were illiterate, the education level of about 40% was lower than high school diploma, approximately 28% had high school diplomas, and 10% had university degrees. The answer of 64.5% of people for the question “Have any of the relatives living in this village migrated in the last 5 years?” was positive. About 74% of the respondents considered these migrations as positive and desirable based on the feedback received from the migrants. According to the findings of this study, in the rural area under study, the levels of place loyalty and subjective well-being are higher than the average. There is no significant difference between the studied villages in terms of the level of subjective well-being and place loyalty as well. At the 95% confidence level, there is a positive and significant relationship between subjective well-being and place loyalty (r = 0.465; p-value <0.001). There is a significant relationship between subjective well-being and variables of marital status, immigration history of relatives, age, and residence length in the village. The relationship between place loyalty and variables of marital status, relatives’ immigration history, age and residence length in the village is also significant.
Discussion: Holding above average level on the part of villagers can be considered as an important advantage. This situation can be regarded as a point of hope for the revitalization and recreation of rural areas, so that it can be highly expected that by taking appropriate actions for rural development, the objective and subjective well-being improves, and the level of place loyalty increases as well. The positive relationship between subjective well-being and place loyalty in rural areas contains significant points about the country’s rural settlements. The increasing trend of the share of rural population and evacuation of many villages, on the one hand is due to various factors, and on the other hand, it is the source of some serious problems in various economic, social, and cultural fields. Subjective well-being along with objective well-being, and some other factors can explain the loyalty of individuals and households towards their settlements. These findings can be used by rural policymakers and planners to take appropriate actions aimed at sustainable development of rural communities.

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The present study did not have received any financial support.
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