SAES-422 Multistate Research Activity Accomplishments Report
Sections
Status: Approved
Basic Information
- Project No. and Title: W1001 : Population Change in Rural Communities
- Period Covered: 10/01/2002 to 09/01/2007
- Date of Report: 11/21/2008
- Annual Meeting Dates: 09/21/2007 to 09/22/2007
Participants
Berry, Eddy (eddy.berry@usu.edu) - Utah State; Brown, David (dlb17@cornell.edu) - Cornell; Cromartie, John (jbc@ers.usda.gov) - USDA-ERS; Evans, Mariah (mevans@unr.edu) - Nevada; Foulkes, Matthew (foulkesm@missouri.edu) - Missouri; Fox, Linda (lkfox@wsu.edu) - Washington State; Fuguitt, Glenn (fuguitt@ssc.wisc.edu) - Wisconsin; Golding, Shaun, (sgolding@ssc.wisc.edu) - Wisconsin; Hammer, Roger (rhammer@oregonstate.edu) - Oregon State; Kandel, William (wkandel@ers.usda.gov) - USDA-ERS; Kirschner, Annabel (kirschner@wsu.edu) - Washington State; Kulcsar, Laszlo (kulcsar@ksu.edu) - Kansas State; Rayer, Stefan (stefanr@bebr.ufl.edu) - Florida; Singelmann, Joachim (joachim@lsu.edu) - Louisiana State; von Reichert, Christiane (chris.vonreichert@mso.umt.edu) - Montana; Wall, Tamara (tamchris.wall@gmail.com) - Montana; White, Katherine (kwhite@ssc.wisc.edu) - Wisconsin;
attached
[Minutes]
Accomplishments
In the first three years, W1001 members collaborated on a coordinated series of research studies focused on the growth and change of rural populations at the national and regional levels, using newly-released Census 2000 data in combination with previous information. As a critical first step, the committee evaluated the Census Bureau's new metro-nonmetro classification system relative to previous systems. Researchers then uniformly adopted the most appropriate schema for the initial set of analyses. Completion of this milestone accompanied the development of a shared database from the Census 2000 SF3 files.
To engage stakeholders early in the process of identifying key demographic questions and developing strategies for disseminating results, the committee organized and co-hosted a two-day Population Change and Rural Society Conference in Washington, DC. Preliminary research findings were presented, abstracts were posted on the ERS web site, and papers were disseminated upon request. Interactions with stakeholders during this workshop and through other venues helped members develop demographic knowledge most useful to stakeholder groups.
The committee produced the first comprehensive, book-length monograph on the demography of rural America at the turn of the century, Population Change and Rural Society (Kandel and Brown, 2006). It included basic analyses on how the rural U.S. population has grown and changed during the last two decades of the twentieth century. It also included a number of targeted, issue-specific case studies focused on different rural regions. The book helped frame rural development policy at the national and regional levels by identifying the main directions of change, where such changes are occurring, and their implications for the well being of rural people and communities. W1001 members edited the volume and contributed 14 of the 20 chapters.
The research conducted in the first three years served as a starting point for meeting the remaining objectives in later years. Over 150 articles in various outlets were written by members of the W-1001 research committee, many including multiple authors from the committee. Participants made numerous research presentations at professional associations and to public policy audiences at the federal, state, and local levels. Core topics included changing patterns of migration, aging of the population, the growth and decline of at-risk populations, and the impacts of population change on local quality of life and access to essential goods and services.
W-1001 published a series of issue briefs that are available on each of the regional Rural Development Center websites, and the WAAESD site. They derive primarily from the chapters of Population Change and Rural Society. The committee also helped shape the Rural Population and Migration briefing room published by ERS, along with two ERS data products (the Profiles of America and Rural Definitions). ERS research has been strongly influenced by topics raised in this group and has addressed many of these issues in its own series of issue briefs (Rural America at a Glance) and articles published in Amber Waves.
Impacts
- W1001 was at the forefront of knowledge development needed to understand the linkages between population change and rural society. The efforts of W1001 contributed substantially to the consideration of policy choices affecting rural communities. The project has had an impact by informing stakeholders, increasing access to data, and shaping population research to meet the needs of stakeholders.
- The demographic future of nonmetropolitan America increasingly depends on social, economic, and political factors that integrate rural America into larger national and international systems. Prospects for local economic development remain uncertain, and processes beyond the control of local officials, such as exchange rate volatility and the persistent erosion of service sector employment wages, are likely to affect rural economies in the coming decades.
- Fewer than one in ten people living in rural areas still have farming-related jobs. Globalization and economic restructuring are affecting rural livelihoods and fostering international migration that contributes to ethnic change. A relatively young, heavily Latino immigrant workforce plays an increasingly important economic and social role amid a retirement-age non-minority population.
- Numerous public policy implications of rapid rural Hispanic population growth stem from differences in age composition between non-Hispanic Whites and the relatively small but rapidly growing Hispanic population.
- Elderly in-migrants to rural retirement destinations have levels of social integration comparable to longer-term older residents despite their recent arrival. They have almost as many children and other relatives close by as older persons who have lived in the retirement destinations for a longer period of time. This bodes well for elderly involvement and well being in new rural communities and bolsters the argument for rural development policies aimed at attracting retirees.
- Some rural areas are being bolstered by the economic benefits of exurban-urban commuters, retirement migration, and natural-amenity-related growth, while many persistently poor counties throughout rural America remain uninfluenced by such developments. Persistent poverty remains both spatially clustered and concentrated among rural minority populations.
- Increasing agricultural productivity and declining natural increase in the Northern Great Plains exert enormous pressure on local labor markets and social service provision in the region. Some rural localities have responded with alternative economic development strategies, including gaming, an approach yielding mixed results.
- The economic prosperity of the 1990s had pronounced effects on the demand for rural land, particularly in the Intermountain West, which witnessed some of the most dramatic population increases in the United States.
- Recreational development has deleterious effects on the housing market for low and moderate income residents, but given the fact that this stems from economic growth rather than stagnation or decline, planned growth strategies could increase homeownership.
- In 2004, W1001 organized and co-hosted the two-day Population Change and Rural Society Conference with the Economic Research Service (ERS). More than 120 people attended, included representatives from USDAs Rural Development mission area, FCA, CNNP, CSREES, and NASS; other Federal agencies, including GAO, FDIC, and HHS; staff from policy organizations, including Brookings Institution, Housing Assistance Council, Aspen Institute, Population Reference Bureau, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and Urban Institute, the Delta Regional Authority, and the North Dakota Farmers Union. The good attendance and wide representation among organizations, the posting of abstracts on the ERS website, the subsequent requests for full copies of the papers, and follow-up presentations at outreach conferences ensured that our demographic insights reached a wide audience.
- Publication of the committees research in Population Change and Rural Society helped frame rural population debates among academics and policy makers because the book is the most comprehensive examination of recent demographic change in rural America. Over 800 citations to various chapters in this text have been noted on the web alone.
- The committee‘s demographic findings were shared with many legislative bodies and numerous state, regional, and national stakeholder groups, including: U.S. House and Senate Agriculture Committees; U.S. House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee; offices of Senators Obama, Dorgan and Durbin; offices of Congressmen Hastert, Davis, Kirk, and Schakowsky; legislatures of Kansas, New York, North Dakota and Illinois; USDA‘s Rural Development mission area; Kids Count; Brookings Institution; National Committee on Rural Health; Utah Public Health Association; Utah Population Projections Committee; Western Governors‘ Association; New York Legislative Commission on Rural Resources; New York State Office for the Aging; State Society on Aging of New York; Association for Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research; and the American Association of Retired Persons.
- Issues briefs developed from chapters in Population Change and Rural Society, along with contributions to the ERS briefing rooms and data products, facilitated wide distribution of our research results to those who can use the information in public decision making. A number of unanticipated sites, including university departments and policy organizations, have linked to the policy briefs.
Publications
Attached is the W1001 publication list, 2002-2007.