The Effects of Metropolitan Residence on the Off-Farm Earnings of Farm Families in the United States1

Abstract Previous research on the effects of urbanization on farming and farm families has focused on the consequences of urban expansion on farming practice rather than on the well-being of farm families. Proximity to urban areas has been found to alter the way farm families utilize the nonfarm labor market. In this study, the off-farm earnings of husbands and wives in farm families are compared across metropolitan (metro) and nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) areas using data from the March supplement to the 1989 Current Population Survey. Censored regression models (tobit) and decomposition are used to demonstrate the effects of nonfarm labor market differences on off-farm labor force participation and earnings. The analysis reveals that farm family members, as expected, have significantly higher rates of participation and earnings in metropolitan areas. But this analysis also reveals that increases in off-farm participation are likely to have a larger effect on total off-farm earnings in nonmetropolitan areas than returns to those already working off-farm. The potential for increases in off-farm earnings will be underestimated in nonmetro areas when changes in participation in the off-farm labor market are not taken into account.     

Gender Inequality in Nonmetropolitan and Metropolitan Areas1

Abstract Nonmetropolitan-metropolitan differences in the United States are large and growing, but we know relatively little about how they interact with gender differences. Using data from the CPS, the Census PUMS, and the GSS, we find nonmetropolitan and metropolitan areas are quite similar in the gender gap in earnings and in rates of married women's labor force participation. Occupational sex segregation is higher and some gender attitudes are a few percentage points less egalitarian in nonmetropolitan areas. Each of these dimensions of gender stratification has been declining over the last two decades and the declines are roughly similar in nonmetropolitan and metropolitan areas. Variations in gender stratification have been greater over time than across place. Thus, while both place and gender are important dimensions of stratification, there appears to have been little interaction between the two.     

Labor Supply,Labor Demand,and Men's Underemployment in Rural and Urban Labor Markets1

Abstract This paper examines how the structure of the labor market differentially affects white men's underemployment in urban and rural areas. The effects of labor supply and demand, including special measures of public employment and two previously neglected aspects of competition—global industrial competition and sexual labor market competition—on unemployment, low-wage employment, and low-hours employment are examined. A higher proportion of females in the labor force in rural labor market areas provides benefits to men in the form of lower unemployment, but also costs them, through an increased prevalence of low-wage employment, while the opposite effects are evident for areas with concentrations in periphery service industries. The findings suggest that industrial restructuring in the form of increased foreign competition and an increased loss of core transformative jobs are especially threatening to rural men's employment adequacy.     

Poverty in Nonmetropolitan America: Impacts of Industrial,Employment, and Family Structure Variables

Abstract Poverty is more extensive and more severe in nonmetropolitan areas than in metropolitan areas. Here we maintain that the extensive industrial and economic transformations occurring in rural areas have resulted in patterns contributing to these high poverty levels. These transformations, which include an increase in service‐sector employment, in many ways mirror the economic changes that have occurred in the inner city. We maintain that Wilson's model of the inner‐city underclass can be useful in understanding some poverty trends in nonmetropolitan areas. To test the Wilson model, we analyze 1990 census data. The data generally support the model and indicate that the industrial transformation of rural areas leads to changes in the gender structure of the labor force, and to a more unbalanced sex ratio. These changes, in turn, result in adjustments to family structure, including an increase in the percentage of female‐headed households. This process results in higher poverty levels.     

Returns vs. Endowments in the Earnings Attainment Process for Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Men and Women1

Abstract Three explanations typically are offered for differences in earnings: (1) individuals have different levels of human capital and hold different jobs (endowments differ), (2) rewards to human capital and job characteristics differ (returns differ), and (3) some combination of differences in endowments and returns explain variations in earnings. We argue that the structure of labor markets in nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) areas differs from that in metropolitan (metro) areas such that returns, as well as endowments, vary. These variations in returns favor metropolitan workers, explaining the predominant portion of the metro/nonmetro earnings gap. We examine the earnings differences for metro and nonmetro men and women in both 1977 and 1987, showing that returns outweigh endowments in explaining that gap for both men and women, although their importance decreases over the ten-year period. Research to improve our understanding of how differences in labor market structure produce differential returns has begun and may yield yet another avenue for action for policymakers interested in reducing metro/nonmetro inequalities.     

SIZE MATTERS:

Previous research explaining macrolevel crime patterns has generally been limited in focus to urban communities. Further, the bulk of this research has narrowly investigated links between socioeconomic deprivation, and to a lesser extent labor market characteristics, and crime rates. Taken together, these two foci reveal important limitations in extant research. First, few studies have examined whether levels of socioeconomic disadvantage impact crime rates in nonmetropolitan settings, despite the fact that some rural communities have high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage and serious crime problems. Second, research on labor markets and crime has assumed that manufacturing industries are uniformly good for communities. Yet an emerging body of research suggests that the size of local manufacturing establishments may have important implications for community socioeconomic well-being, organization, and social control. Drawing from recent research documenting the positive impact small manufacturing firms have on communities, we expect a strong presence of small firms to be associated with low crime rates in nonmetropolitan areas. Moreover, our conceptual framework suggests that the presence of small manufacturing will temper the criminogenic effects socioeconomic disadvantage has on crime rates. Based on data from 1,731 nonmetropolitan counties, our findings lend strong support to these expectations. The implications of these findings for theory and research on aggregate crime rates are discussed.     

Farm Structure and Economic Well-Being: A Look at Three Methodological Sins

Abstract Sociologists have increasingly turned to secondary data sources to study social and economic change. As our experience in this area increases, so should our methodological rigor. Three common methodological sins—model mis-specification, inattention to regional influences, and fuzzy operationalizations—are illustrated through a critique of Barnes and Blevins' (1992) study of farm structure and economic well-being in nonmetropolitan areas. This paper argues, and demonstrates empirically, that many of Barnes and Blevins' conclusions are suspect because they did not include ethnic and regional variables in their regression studies.     

Gifted delinquents: What do we know about them?

Gifted and talented youths—defined as youths who show achievement or potential ability in regard to general intelligence, a specific academic area, creative or productive thinking, leadership, visual or performing arts, or psychomotor activities—constitute one of the nation's most vital resources. Some portion of these youths come in contact with the juvenile court. This article reviews the research on gifted delinquents with particular attention to four longitudinal studies, three British and one American. The research is examined in order to ascertain whether it lends support to the thesis that bright youths are more vulnerable to delinquency because they are more sensitive to an unfavorable environment, or to the thesis that they are protected against delinquency because of their greater ability to understand and cope with environmental conditions. The findings indicate that bright youths are less likely to appear in delinquent populations than others and more likely to come from disrupted and unstable homes. To some extent they support the thesis that bright children are protected from delinquency by their intelligence except in extreme family circumstances. School performance for most bright delinquents is far below capacity, although there is evidence that some youths become disruptive outside of school before their school performance deteriorates.     

Informal Work in Nonmetropolitan Pennsylvania1

Abstract It is well recognized that the informal economy—unregulated economic activities that generate real or in-kind income—features prominently in the day-to-day lives of many in the developing world. Researchers have begun to explore the informal economy in developed countries but this work has focussed primarily on urban areas to the neglect of rural areas. In this paper the nature and correlates of informal work in nonmetropolitan Pennsylvania are described through an analysis of survey data on 505 families. Results indicate that participation in informal activities is widespread, is not more typical of the poor, does not contribute greatly to family income on average but does help many poor families weather difficult economic times, is both economically and noneconomically motivated, and, net of other sociodemographic variables, is positively related to rurality of residence and formal labor supply.     

Consequences of Population Change for Retail/Wholesale Sector Employment in the Nonmetropolitan Great Plains: 1950–19961

Abstract A rural economic restructuring perspective and central place theory are used to assess the impact of population change on retail/wholesale sector employment for the 438 nonmetropolitan counties of the Great Plains region from 1950 to 1990. Findings indicate that county level population declined for every decade except the 1970 turnaround decade, and the greatest losses were in completely rural nonadjacent counties. The civilian labor force declined for all but the 1970 decade, when there was a substantial increase due to increased nonmetro manufacturing and the baby boom cohorts reaching labor force age. Retail/wholesale labor force increased in every decade except the 1980s. However, regression analysis found a positive and highly significant relationship between population change and retail/wholesale employment change. For this region, population decline is a major contributor to decline in the retail/wholesale employment sector at the county level. Preliminary data from the 1990–1996 period indicate a population and labor force rebound from the 1980s. However, as in the 1980s, gains are most likely concentrated in a small number of mainly urban nonadjacent counties.     

The underemployment of American rural women: prevalence,trends and spatial inequality

The growing numerical significance of women in the US nonmetropolitan labor force has not been matched by parallel efforts to document the changing quality of their employment. In this paper. Lichter uses the labor utilization framework of Clogg and Sullivan to examine the prevalence and spatial convergence of various forms of female underemployment during 1970-1985. Data from the March annual demographic files of the Current Population Survey reveal that underemployment has been a significant aspect of the employment experiences of nonmetropolitan women during this period. There has been little evidence of spatial or sex convergence in labor market outcomes. Roughly 1 of every 3 rural female workers today is a discouraged worker, jobless, employed part-time involuntarily, or working for poverty-level wages. Moreover, rural women continue to suffer substantially higher levels of economic underemployment than urban women and rural men. This study reinforces the view that rural women remain a seriously underutilized labor resource in the US.     

Female Labor Force Participation in Urban and Rural China1

Abstract The objective of this study is to examine female labor force participation and its determinants in rural and urban China. The sociological literature has demonstrated that participation tends to increase in urban and industrialized places where women have higher levels of education and fewer children, where more workers are engaged in service pursuits, and where family structure is less traditional. With the use of data on counties and cities (N = 2,377) from the I-percent sample of the 1982 census of the People's Republic of China, it was found that female labor force participation is likely to rise in areas with increased agricultural employment, educational levels, proportion of female-headed households, and higher male-to-female sex ratios. Both the size of the service sector and the fertility rate had negligible effects on female labor force participation. Although, on average, rural places have slightly higher levels of female labor force participation, when other variables are controlled, urban places have a higher rate of female participation. In addition, the findings suggest that market factors (i.e., education) are more likely to determine the rate of female labor force participation in urban areas; whereas demographic and social factors (i.e., sex ratio and household structure) play a more important role in explaining the female labor force participation in rural counties.     

Commuting and the rural-urban hierarchy

The purpose of this paper is to consider the relation between commuting and the settlement structure, with particular attention to rural and nonmetropolitan areas. I examined commuting flows between metropolitan central cities, other metropolitan areas, nonmetropolitan places with more than 10,000 people, those with 2500–10000 people, and other rural areas. Despite the deconcentration of population, industry and trade that was especially marked in the 1970s, commuting in 1980 was predominantly toward larger places in the ruralurban hierarchy, and particularly from rural areas and the other metropolitan category to cities. Overall levels of commuting were high, and most were within either nonmetropolitan or metropolitan areas. Smaller nonmetropolitan places particularly had high proportions of both in- and out-commuters. Differences in commuting flows by gender, socioeconomic status and industry were small, but generally in the directions expected on the basis of prior research. The findings reveal a high degree of work-residence interdependence among settlement units in nonmetropolitan America, with social and economic differences in commuting flows representing an important aspect of community structure.     

Household job search: A theoretical and empirical model

This article links the literature on family decision making and the economics of job search by examining job search by an unemployed individual within a household context. A theoretical model was developed which demonstrates the interdependence of the utility of household members when one is searching for work. The costs of search are borne by all household members while the benefits are captured in the searcher's expected future wage. A reservation wage was shown to be determined by household financing options, and the perception of relevant labor market parameters. An empirical model of the reservation wage for a sample of unemployment insurance recipients was estimated using two-stage least squares. Results, reported for male and female subgroups, support the hypotheses derived from the household job search model. In particular, the reservation wage was shown to depend on unemployment duration, labor market conditions, increased labor force participation of other household members, use of household assets to finance search, existence of dependents, and unemployment insurance benefits.     

Local Government Fiscal Burden in Nonmetropolitan America1

Rising fiscal pressure on local governments in rural areas of the United States is documented in this study. The level of fiscal burden on taxpayers to support local governments in nonmetropolitan areas is found to be higher than that in metropolitan areas between 1977 and 1987. Using a model from the urban fiscal literature, the level of fiscal burden in nonmetropolitan areas is found to be influenced by a combination of demographic, socioeconomic, intergovernmental, and historical factors. Intergovernmental revenue transfers from the state and federal government play a critical role in determining the level of fiscal burden rural taxpayers bear. These findings have implications for rural economic development and for understanding how rural areas are influenced by the larger society.     

Poor People in Poor Places: Local Opportunity Structures and Household Poverty*

Abstract Accounts of poverty generally fall into either “individualist” or “structuralist” camps. Often these are seen as irreconcilable and incompatible competing perspectives. This paper integrates individualist and structuralist accounts of poverty by examining the relationship between “person poverty” and “place poverty” in nonmetropolitan and metropolitan labor markets, using a multilevel framework. I fashion a general model of poverty production and allocation, drawing on the labor market ecology perspective. After a discussion of this perspective, I develop a multilevel framework for analyzing data from the 1990 Census PUMS‐L sample, STF‐3c, and other sources to show how compositional and contextual factors affect households' likelihoods of being in poverty. These multilevel models also allow us to estimate the degree to which labor market conditions influence the magnitude of household labor supply characteristics. Results suggest that both compositional and contextual factors contribute to the metro‐nonmetro difference in poverty rates, and that the effects of employment vary in accordance with labor market characteristics.     

Women at work: Commitment and behavior over the life course

Women at every stage of the family cycle are increasing their labor force participation but few maintain the continuous, full-time attachment characteristic of employed men. What does this mean in terms of women's subjective work commitment? Using data from six waves of the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics this study investigates the relationship between the pattern of employment over a five-year period and employed women's psychological commitment to work; findings suggest congruence as well as incongruence between labor force attitudes and behavior at different stages of the life course. Commitment to work in 1976 is also incorporated in a model estimating 1977 employment status. Results reveal that the greatest congruence between subjective commitment and labor force attachment is found in young women who have not yet begun their child bearing. On the other hand, employed mothers of preschoolers emerge as the group most likely to evidence discrepancies between labor force behavior and psychological commitment to the work role. Subjective commitment to work is shown to have a slight positive effect in estimating labor force activity the subsequent year, but the greatest predictor is women's work pattern over the previous five years.     

Les rejetés de la modernisation

In Brazil unlike France two very split labour markets co-exist, the formal and the informal. On the formal labor market in Brazil, union rights prevail, and wage-earners are protected unlike in the informal labor market where none of this exists. Raising industry to an international level pushed many wage-earners out of the formal sector during the 1980s. Did they find jobs elsewhere? If so, in which branches of the economy? To provide answers, two files are crossed, their data having been made longitudinal. Dismissed workers’ trajectories from 1989 till 1995 in two branches and two regions are analyzed: the automobile industry in the São Paulo area and the petrochemical industry in the São Salvador (Bahia) area. These career trajectories shed light on how modernization has affected quite different labor markets; it also brings to the foreground the concept of a systemic restructuring of the labor market. — Special issue: Latin America.     

Income distributions,labour market sectors and the Goldschmidt hypothesis: the nonmetropolitan United States in 1970 and 1980

Local social structures are not simply their national counterparts writ small. There are autonomous, locality-specific influences which have a significant bearing on variations in socio-economic conditions. To show this. this paper concentrates on two measures of income distribution — family/household income inequality and poverty rates. Drawing on data from a one-in-six systematic sample of nonmetropolitan U.S. counties for 1970 and 1980, variations in these conditions are evaluated in the context of labour market segmentation and Goldschmidt's ideas on the socio-economic consequences of large-scale farms. The direct effects of these causal forces are shown to be influenced by the employment structures of local labour markets. The most important determinants of income distribution differences within labour market types are shown to be monopoly sector employment, competitive sector employment, large farm holdings, nonwhite population compositions and location within the southern United States.     

What Clean Break?: Education and Nonmetropolitan Migration Patterns, 1989–2004

Abstract Recent data suggest that nonmetropolitan America is experiencing an outmigration trend. Between 1998 and 2004, more people have moved out of nonmetropolitan areas than moved into these areas. This net outmigration trend presents a fundamental challenge to nonmetropol‐itan areas and contradicts the predictions of social scientists who argued that the rural renaissance of the 1970s represented a clean break with earlier patterns of internal migration. Using annual data from the 1989– 2004 rounds of the Current Population Survey March Demographic Supplement, this paper analyzes recent trends in metropolitan/nonmetro‐politan migration. It demonstrates that highly educated nonmetropolitan youth are leading contemporary nonmetropolitan outmigration. Contrary to the clean break theory, this paper argues that economic incentives continue to be relevant to current nonmetropolitan/metropolitan migration patterns.