Wellbeing at the edge: Commuting, gender and territorial disadvantage in Italian Inner Areas

Depopulation and territorial decline increasingly reflect everyday constraints that undermine the liveability of disadvantaged areas. Commuting can enable residents to maintain attachment to place while accessing employment and services, but it may also generate time pressure and reduce wellbeing, especially in less accessible contexts. Using data from the Italian Time Use Survey, we analyse experienced wellbeing during commuting alongside broader evaluative outcomes, including perceived time pressure and satisfaction with work–life balance, leisure time, and life overall. Taken together, our findings suggest that commuting is associated with one of the mechanisms through which territorial disadvantage may be reflected in subjective wellbeing. Although residents of disadvantaged areas do not report lower life satisfaction, longer and more demanding commuting patterns are associated with lower satisfaction with work–life balance and leisure time, particularly for women. These results highlight how relatively high overall life evaluations can coexist with commuting-related time constraints in peripheral contexts suggesting that improving accessibility and reducing commuting-related time burdens may be crucial for the long-term sustainability of disadvantaged areas.