Economic Restructuring and Family Well-Being in Rural America

Contents

List of Figures

List of Maps

List of Tables

Foreword

Cynthia “Mil” Duncan

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Kristin E. Smith and Ann Tickamyer

Section 1: Changing Economic Opportunities and Changing Roles

1 Rural Economic Restructuring: Implications for Children, Youth, and Families

Daniel T. Lichter and Deborah Roempke Graefe

2 Employment Hardship Among Rural Men

Leif Jensen and Eric B. Jensen

3 Changing Roles: Women and Work in Rural America

Kristin E. Smith

4 Men Without Sawmills: Job Loss and Gender Identity in Rural America

Jennifer Sherman

Section 2: Family Change, Economic Hardship, and Family Adaptive Strategies

5 Economic Restructuring and Family Structure Change, 1980 to 2000: A Focus on Female-Headed Families with Children

Diane K. McLaughlin and Alisha J. Coleman-Jensen

6 Patterns of Family Formation and Dissolution in Rural America and Implications for Well-Being

Anastasia Snyder

7 Job Characteristics and Economic Survival Strategies: The Effect of Economic Restructuring and Marital Status in a Rural County

Margaret K. Nelson

8 Economic Hardship, Parenting, and Family Stability in a Cohort of Rural Adolescents

Katherine Jewsbury Conger

Section 3: Low-Wage Employment

9 Parents’ Work Time in Rural America: The Growth of Irregular Schedules

Elaine McCrate

10 Low-Wage Employment Among Minority Women in Nonmetropolitan Areas: A Decomposition Analysis

Marlene Lee

11 Regional Variation of Women in Low-Wage Work Across Rural Communities

Cynthia D. Anderson and Chih-Yuan Weng

Section 4: Work and Family Policy

12 Strengthening Rural Communities Through Investment in Youth Education, Employment, and Training

Liliokanaio Peaslee and Andrew Hahn

13 Child Care in Rural America

Nicole D. Forry and Susan K. Walker

14 Health Insurance in Rural America

Deborah Roempke Graefe

15 Livelihood Practices in the Shadow of Welfare Reform

Ann Tickamyer and Debra Henderson

16 Poverty, Work, and the Local Environment: TANF and EITC

Domenico Parisi, Steven Michael Grice, Guangqing Chi, and Jed Pressgrove

Conclusions

Ann Tickamyer and Kristin E. Smith

References

List of Contributors

Index

“While the troubles facing the banking and housing sectors have served as the focal points of our nation’s economic woes, it’s around the kitchen tables of many rural American families where the pain and strain have been profoundly felt. Regrettably, efforts to examine the multifaceted consequences of economic restructuring on family well-being have been virtually absent—until now. Assembling a veritable ‘who’s who’ among social and behavioral scientists, Smith and Tickamyer have guided the development of an impressive research volume that offers important insights into the array of family-related challenges playing in rural America today as a product of national and global economic forces. The value-added aspect of this volume is the attention that it devotes to policy—to the mix of investments and refinements that policy makers must pursue in order to promote the stability and the long-term vitality of families in rural America.”

—Lionel J. “Bo” Beaulieu, Southern Rural Development Center, Mississippi State University