Farm Management
Executive Summary
The Our State, Our Lives: Alabama Wellbeing Survey was developed to help better understand the experiences and challenges of Alabamians, and specifically, how those experiences and challenges may differ across geographic locations. The aim was to gain a deeper understanding of how conditions and issues differ for rural, suburban, and urban dwellers. The survey included questions about quality of life, community attachment, migration intentions, health, care giving, income, and workforce participation. The survey was conducted online as a best-quotas sample, meaning the sampling frame was designed to reflect Alabama’s demographics across age, race, ethnicity, educational attainment, gender, and geographic location, as measured by respondents’ self-identification of their community as rural, urban, or suburban. A total of 1,947 Alabamians participated in the survey in 2025.
The survey revealed that most respondents are satisfied with their communities, with suburban residents more satisfied than those in urban or rural areas. More than 40% of middle-aged adults reported struggling with bills at least every other month, compared with only 35% of younger adults and 22% of older adults. Rural households with at least one full-time working adult report more financial strain in keeping up with bills than their suburban and urban peers. Caregiving—whether it involves elder care or childcare—affects roughly one in three respondents’ ability to work, with elder care having a particularly negative impact on self-reported wellbeing. Insofar as the desire to move somewhere else, Alabama rural residents express the greatest desire to stay in their communities, with urban dwellers accounting for the largest percentage of Alabamians who desire to move to a suburban or rural area but feel “stuck.” The survey found that three out of every ten respondents either work from home or have a hybrid work location job.
The goal of the data presented in the following pages is to provide citizens, community decision-makers, elected officials, businesses, and researchers with helpful information about their communities and the perspectives of Alabamians.
Kelli J. Russell, Assistant Extension Professor; Jean R. Francios, Postdoctoral Fellow; Mykel Taylor, Department Head and Professor; Matthew J. Zinsli, Postdoctoral Fellow, all in Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Auburn University
New May 2026, The 2025 Our State, Our Lives Alabama Wellbeing Survey Rural Partnership, ANR-3253
For more information, contact your county Extension office. Visit www.aces.edu/directory.
Trade and brand names used in this publication are given for information purposes only. No guarantee, endorsement, or discrimination among comparable products is intended or implied by the Alabama Cooperative Extension System.
