Rural Migration,Rapid Growth,and Fear of Crime*

Abstract Although much research on rural “boomtowns” explores differences between rapid‐growth communities and more stable communities, it is logical to consider that residents within rural boomtowns experience community transitions in different ways. We examine a specific outcome, fear of crime, across three categories of community residents with different migration histories: lifetime residents, migrants who joined the boomtown community during its period of rapid growth, and post‐boom period migrants. This perspective is particularly interesting, given the likelihood that these three different categories of residents have had substantially different community experiences. Making use of survey data from two intermountain West communities that represent resource‐dependent transitions during the 1970s and 1980s (Evanston, Wyoming and Delta, Utah), we find that boom migrants express greater fear of crime than longer‐term residents or post‐boom migrants. The findings suggest that the longer‐term decline in fear of crime in “post‐boom” periods is not equal among residents.     

The effect of the sex composition of jobs on starting wages in an organization: Findings from the NLSY

We show that individuals in a job with a higher percentage of females earn lower starting wages with an employing organization. This holds true with controls for individuals’ human capital, job demands for skill or difficult working conditions, and detailed industry. We use a measure of sex composition that applies to detailed jobs: cells in a three-digit census occupation by three-digit census industry matrix. We use pooled panel data from the 19791987 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The unit of analysis is the spell-the time in which a person worked for one organization. The dependent variable is the first wage in the spell. We use models with fixed-effects to control for unmeasured, unchanging individual characteristics; we also show results from OLS and weighted models for comparison. The negative effect on wages of the percentage female in one’s job is robust across procedures for black women, white women, and white men. For black men the sign is always negative but the coefficient is often nonsignificant.     

Conventional and piecewise growth modeling techniques: applications and implications for investigating Head Start children's early literacy learning

This article reviews the mechanics of conventional and piecewise growth models to demonstrate the unique affordances of each technique for examining the nature and predictors of children's early literacy learning during the transition from preschool through first grade. Using the nationally representative Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) data set, 1997 cohort, the authors show how piecewise models revealed discrete contributions of child, family, and classroom experiences to children's literacy skills within particular years, whereas conventional models, which considered the whole 3-year trajectory of change as a single outcome, revealed fewer of these nuanced contributions.     

Elder abuse in nursing homes: an ecological perspective

Population trends suggest that the next 20 years will witness a dramatic increase in the adult population aged 65 and older. Projected increases in the elderly population are expected to significantly increase the stress on family and professional caretakers. Stress, in the context of caregiving relationships, is a risk factor associated with increased prevalence of elder abuse in familial and institutional settings. As increasing numbers of older adults are moved from family caregiving to nursing home care settings, it becomes important to identify the pattern of elder abuse risk factors in nursing home facilities. An ecological model is proposed for better understanding the risk factors associated with elder abuse in nursing homes and the complex interaction of individual/person characteristics and contextual factors in institutional elder abuse. An ecological perspective to institutional elder abuse provides a framework for guiding and informing future research on the risk factors of nursing home abuse and, in turn, for the development of effective interventions and relevant social policies.     

Population Growth in High‐Amenity Rural Areas: Does it Bring Socioeconomic Benefits for Long‐Term Residents?*

OBJECTIVE: A widely noted concern with amenity-driven rural population growth is its potential to yield only low-wage service-sector employment for long-term residents, while raising local costs of living. This research examines change in socioeconomic status during the 1990s for long-term residents of high-amenity, high-growth rural counties in the United States. METHODS: Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, in combination with county-level information, we estimate growth-curve models to examine the extent to which the socioeconomic status of long-term residents is associated with amenity-related in-migration. RESULTS: We find that, on average, residents in high-growth, amenity-rich rural areas have higher income growth over time and higher levels of initial occupational prestige compared to those from other rural areas, but that socioeconomic gains are primarily for individuals with low baseline prestige. CONCLUSIONS: The socioeconomic gains made by long-term residents of high-growth, amenity-rich rural areas associated with net in-migration may be limited to individuals with low initial prestige and growth may be due to low-skill service-sector jobs.     

Effects of neighborhood walkability on healthy weight: assessing selection and causal influences

Studies that examine the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and weight are limited because residents are not randomly distributed into neighborhoods. If associations are found between neighborhood characteristics and weight in observational studies, one cannot confidently draw conclusions about causality. We use data from the Utah Population Database (UPDB) that contain body mass index (BMI) information from all drivers holding a Utah driver license to undertake a cross-sectional analysis that compares the neighborhood determinants of BMI for youth and young adults. This analysis assumes that youth have little choice in their residential location while young adults have more choice. Our analysis makes use of data on 53,476 males and 47,069 females living in Salt Lake County in 2000. We find evidence of residential selection among both males and females when BMI is the outcome. The evidence is weaker when the outcomes are overweight or obesity. We conclude that studies that ignore the role of residential selection may be overstating the causal influence of neighborhood features in altering residents’ BMI.     

Examining the impact of family services on homeless children

This study examined the impact on children of services delivered through a collaborative initiative designed to provide supports to working poor families who are homeless or at immediate risk of becoming homeless. Overall, a number of positive findings can serve to inform the development of promising intervention strategies for children in homeless families and highlight areas for further research. Along with improved housing status, there was a statistically significant improvement in the economic self‐sufficiency of the families served, regardless of whether they completed the full programme cycle. In addition, youth self‐report data indicated significant improvements in externalizing and internalizing behaviour. The ability to combine programme data with school data for participating children also made it possible to explore school performance outcomes. Although these results did not indicate a change in participants’ levels of attendance or reading performance, there was a statistically significant improvement in students’ math scores. Moreover, when participating children were compared with a group of students matched on their level of academic performance at baseline who had not received housing or homeless services, no significant differences were detected between groups post‐intervention, indicating that services may help reduce the risk of homeless students’ falling further behind their peers academically.