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 may be one of the mechanisms through which territorial disadvantage is reflected in subjective wellbeing. Although on average residents of peripheral areas neither report lower wellbeing during commuting nor lower life satisfaction, longer daily commutes are associated with lower satisfaction with work–life balance and with leisure time. Women living in peripheral areas, moreover, report less positive commuting experiences than men and appear to be more exposed to time pressure in disadvantaged territorial contexts. 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.