Source: PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY submitted to
SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
REVISED
Funding Source
HATCH
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1013257
Grant No.
(N/A)
Project No.
PEN04623
Proposal No.
(N/A)
Multistate No.
W-4001
Program Code
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Oct 1, 2017
Project End Date
Sep 30, 2022
Grant Year
(N/A)
Project Director
Jensen, LE.
Recipient Organization
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
208 MUELLER LABORATORY
UNIVERSITY PARK,PA 16802
Performing Department
Agri Economics, Sociology & Education
Non Technical Summary
Rural populations are changing in both size and structure. Population change matters, but demography is not destiny. Changes in population size and characteristics affect a wide range of social and economic outcomes, but these changes are not automatic, nor mechanistic, and are mediated by institutions, local community preferences and historical and cultural legacies. Research is needed to examine the causal pathways that link population change to rural inequality, prosperity and well-being. This project seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of current population processes affecting U.S. rural areas and provide to stakeholders policy-relevant research findings on the demographic causes and consequences of socioeconomic and environmental change. The project is designed around two, closely related topics: the interrelationships between rural population change and the prosperity of rural places; and the interrelationships between environmental shocks and stressors and the well-being of rural people, places, and institutions. To address these topics, three research objectives are pursued. First, to document nonmetropolitan population change, examine the dynamics of these changes and investigate their social, economic, and environmental causes and consequences. Second, to describe the interrelationships between contemporary rural population change and inequality, prosperity and well-being of rural people, places and institutions. Finally, to describe the interrelationships between environmental shocks and stressors and the well-being of rural people, places, and institutions.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
75%
Applied
25%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
80360993080100%
Knowledge Area
803 - Sociological and Technological Change Affecting Individuals, Families, and Communities;

Subject Of Investigation
6099 - People and communities, general/other;

Field Of Science
3080 - Sociology;
Goals / Objectives
Document nonmetropolitan population change, examine the dynamics of these changes and investigate their social, economic, and environmental causes and consequences. Describe the interrelationships between contemporary rural population change and inequality, prosperity, and well-being of rural people, places and institutions. Describe the interrelationships between environmental shocks and stressors and the well-being of rural people, places, and institutions.
Project Methods
All three objectives share methodological approaches and strategies for data collection and analysis that we developed in the predecessor committee. The research will still depend in large measure on aggregate level, comparative, and cross-sectional analyses of population change and redistribution using data from various federal sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau, USDA's Economic Research Service, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Committee members will collaborate to build databases that all members can access.Most of the work will be at the county level of analysis and will employ nonmetropolitan counties as a proxy for rural and small town areas. As in previous projects, survey research, case studies, focus groups, in-depth interviews and other methods of data collection will elaborate the information obtained from the aggregate level demographic analysis. These more intensive approaches strengthen and deepen explanations, and provide additional, localized meaning to the aggregate quantitative information.To describe the changing distribution and composition of the rural population, we will use several public data sources. These include, but are not limited to the following: Vital Records and Statistics; Decennial Censuses; Net Migration Rates for US Counties; Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Statistics of Income Division (SOI) County-to-County Migration Data; and American Community Survey (ACS) Estimates. With the release of the US Census Bureau's 2014 ACS five-year estimates, rural researchers had their first access to non-overlapping five-year estimates, providing the basis for longitudinal comparisons. New five-year estimates are scheduled for release each year, allowing for assessment of change on a range of demographic, social, housing, economic, and health variables. Beyond geographically aggregated data (with the county-level being the major focus for the projects to be undertaken under this proposal because of their comparability with other data sources), the ACS also provides public use microdata that can be analyzed to identify individual and household characteristics and patterns, and to compare between public use microdata areas.While the new five-year estimates are a welcome addition to the work of rural researchers, the particular methodological issue of sample size persists. The ACS is based on samples that have significant margins of error in the many rural areas that have small populations. It is imperative that researchers recognize the implications of this uncertainty of estimation. The proposed project will explore the implications of estimation error for researchers examining rural demographic change. Data on unemployment and related labor-market indicators come from Bureau of Labor Statistics sources, including their Local Area Unemployment Statistics. In addition to the standard demographic and economic data sources, we will also use CDC mortality data (NCHS) and health data from the National Health Interview Survey and National Study on Drug Abuse and Health.Analysis of core demographic data will contribute to a better understanding of the impacts of environmental change on populations, as well as the ways in which these impacts vary by the socioeconomic characteristics and development interventions of specific places. Using outcome indicators such as migration and health outcomes, combined with institutional contexts and organizational responses, models can be developed and tested to inform program and policy development. This will require multi-method research with statistical analysis of quantitative data combined with comparative case studies.Aggregate level analysis is frequently affected by spatial autocorrelation; we will use spatial regression analysis, where appropriate, to ensure that parameter estimation is carried out with models specified to account for autocorrelation in the data. As before, we will use geographic information technology (GIS) to visualize and explore the geographic variability of demographic and socioeconomic phenomena. As specific research questions are finalized, other data sources and methodologies will be incorporated.

Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences are primarily other academics, students, policy analysts, and practitioners. Some portions of the work also target Pennsylvania immigrant communities, Pennsylvania farmworkers, Pennsylvania farm employers, and international NGOs (non-governmental organizations). Changes/Problems:Due to the coronavirus pandemic, limitations imposed on travel, human subjects research and fieldwork hobbled research productivity. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Five graduate students were supported in this reporting period, who have been trained in the research methodologies their work involved. Additionally, a researcher co-chaired the committee for a Ph.D. student who graduated in Spring 2020. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results were reported in many academic journals, including Rural Sociology. Most plans to disseminate research through conference presentations have been canceled because of the pandemic, although some have "met" virtually. A website was developed for the Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging which began serving as a vehicle for disseminating helpful information for the research community doing work in this area. The blog "Gender, Food, Agriculture, and Coronavirus" reaches a large and diverse audience. Outreach materials produced with Penn State Extension and with the Penn State Center for Immigrant Rights Clinic were distributed directly to immigrant and farmworker communities. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the next reporting period, work will continue on all project goals; the research reported for the span of this progress report is ongoing and will continue to generate additional publications. Specifically, but not exhaustively,the following progress is expected: Continuation of research focused on income inequality within rural U.S. communities;research on rural population health and aging; research detailing the impacts of COVID on farmworkers; research on the effects of climatic conditions on food security and nutrition.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Progress toward Goal #1 was achieved through numerous publications, including: A paper published in Cancer Causes and Control examines the urban-rural difference in aggressive prostate cancer among black and white men (Chi). A paper published in Spatial Demography looks into rural poverty using spatial regression analysis methods (Chi). Papers accepted by Research in Globalization examines the impacts of demographic and climate changes on agricultural production in Kyrgyzstan (Chi). A paper in Rural Sociology provides a fifty-year profile of underemployment in rural and urban America, raising awareness about persisting disadvantages among people of color overall and rural African Americans in particular (Jensen). Relevant to increasing attention to new immigrant destinations in rural and small-town America, this research showed a convergence between rural and urban Hispanics in the risk of underemployment. A paper published in Environment and Planning A: "Economy and Space developed and presented new ways of evaluating the empirical quality of labor market area delineations."Wethen applied these to existing and newly generated delineations (Jensen). The research was disseminated to the research community and promises to benefit rural social science by showing how different delineations vary significantly in the types of labor markets they represent, thus informing researcher choices between delineations. Another article was accepted for publication in Population Research and Policy Review (Jensen). It provides an overview of the changing demography of rural and small-town America. Bridging Goals 1 and 2, work continued on the NIA-funded project titled, "The Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging (INRPHA)."Led by Penn State (Jensen) and inspired by this multistate research project, INRPHA supported new research on the implications of rural residence for health and health behaviors, cognitive functioning, and opioid use disorder. Progress toward Goal #2 was achieved by conducting and publishing research on (a) racial disparities in labor market outcomes in the rural United States (Thiede, Jensen); and (b) changing access to essential services among residents of aging rural communities (Jensen). This research was disseminated through several published and accepted publications. This research (1) explored rural-urban variation in the prevalence, nature, and impact of participation in the informal economy as a household economic livelihood strategy (Jensen, Tickamyer), demonstrating greater presence and reliance on informal work in the countryside, and (2) drew on USDA-NIFA funded research to document and explain social, economic and demographic determinants of changing income inequality at the county level in the United States (Thiede, Jensen). Also, a published commentary in the American Journal of Public Health drew on INRPHA to set an agenda for needed multi-dimensional and multi-level research on rural-urban and within-rural differences in health disparities; the impacts of health and aging trends; relationships between health, aging and economic well-being; the implications of physical isolation; and the impact of environmental hazards and change (Jensen). Other publications looked at rural livelihoods, poverty, and inequality and the methods used to study these subjects. A co-authored book chapter reviewed occupational safety and health conditions facing immigrant workers in livestock industries in the United States (Sexsmith). The chapter shows that the restructuring of agricultural industries has led to consolidation of livestock farms, introducing new forms of risk to worker safety and health. The chapter also shows that structural changes in the economy have occurred alongside the increasing dependence of farmers on Latinx immigrant agricultural labor, including both new migrant communities and settled Latinx, with a focus on the Northeastern US. These findings are relevant to academics and occupational health practitioners in agricultural industries. Progress toward Goal #3 was made with the following projects: First, data were collected from 30 producers in Intibucá, Honduras on how gender shapes vulnerabilities and adaptation capacities to climate change in smallholder coffee farming communities (Sexsmith). Results showed that women's more limited access to land, inputs and off-farm labor constrains their potential to adapt their coffee production to environmental stressors induced by climate change. The data were collected in collaboration with the NGO CARE Honduras and a report (in Spanish) was shared with the organization. Second, a new project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) titled, "COVID-19 Preparedness in Remote Fishing Communities in Rural Alaska," investigates the impacts of COVID-19 on the wellbeing of the local communities in the Bristol Bay area of Alaska (Chi). It also investigates the perceptions of local residents toward the benefits and risks of opening the fishing season. Third, another project, funded last year by the NSF, investigates environmental migration, food insecurities, and human-environment hotspots in coastal Arctic Indigenous communities (Chi). As a new and important environmental shock, the COVID-19 pandemic has captured the attention of project participants through a blog on the implications of the pandemic for agriculture, with emphasis on women and gender (Castellanos). Additionally, in support of Goal #3 a publication in the journal Social Science & Medicine examines relationships between temperature and rainfall conditions and child stunting in Ethiopia, a country in which 85% of the population lives in rural areas and depends on agriculture (Randell). The paper reveals that exposure to hotter temperatures in utero are linked to stunting in early childhood, while greater rainfall in early life is positively associated with a child's height. However, warmer temperatures during early childhood appear to have a protective effect on child nutrition. This study suggests that cooler areas of the tropics, such as highland Ethiopia, are likely to experience greater vulnerability to undernutrition associated with climate change in the medium term.

Publications

  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Yin, Junjun and Guangqing Chi. 2019. "Exploring Urban Spatial Interaction Patterns: A spatial network approach with geographic context-aware geo-located Twitter data." The annual meeting of North American Regional Science Association, November 1316, Pittsburgh, PA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Scott, Christian and Guangqing Chi. 2019. "Womens Entrepreneurship in the Pamir Mountains." Presented at the Fifth Annual Life in Kyrgyzstan Conference, October 23, 2019, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Palacios, Effie and Kathleen Sexsmith. (2020). Occupational Justice for Latinx Livestock Workers. Chapter in Thomas Arcury and Sara Quandt. Latinx Farmworkers in the Eastern United States  Health, Safety, and Justice. Second Edition. Springer. Pp. 107-131.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Sexsmith, Kathleen. (2019). For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government is Losing the Trust of Rural America by Loka Ashwood. American Journal of Sociology Vol. 125, No. 2. Pp. 577-579.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Hazel Velasco Palacios and Kathleen Sexsmith. Gender effects of climate change: Perceptions of smallholder coffee farmers in Intibuc�, Honduras. Rural Sociological Society Gender and Sexuality Research Interest Group. (Virtual presentation, August 19, 2020).
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2020 Citation: Sexsmith, Kathleen. The Embodied Precarity of Year-Round Agricultural Work: Accident and Injury Risks for Latino/a Immigrant Workers in the New York Dairy Industry. Under review with Agriculture and Human Values.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2020 Citation: Sexsmith, Kathleen and Richard Kiely. Dealing with Dissonance: How faculty Global Service Learning instructors reconcile clashing values surrounding community engagement. Under review with the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2020 Citation: Weiler, Anelyse, Kathleen Sexsmith, and Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern. Parallel Precarity: A Comparison of U.S. and Canadian Agricultural Guest Worker Programs. Accepted pending revision at the International Journal of Sociology of Food and Agriculture.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Fowler, Christopher S. and Leif Jensen. 2020. Bridging the Gap Between Geographic Concept and the Data We Have: The Case of Labor Markets in the U.S. Environment and Planning A, 52(7): 1395-1414.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Jensen, Leif, Shannon M. Monnat, John J. Green, Lori M. Hunter, Martin J. Sliwinski. 2020. "Rural Population Health and Aging: Toward a Multilevel and Multidimensional Research Agenda for the 2020s." American Journal of Public Health, 110(9):1328-1331.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Thiede, Brian C., David L. Brown, Jaclyn Butler and Leif Jensen. 2020. "Income inequality is getting worse in US urban areas." The Conversation, 14 April. https://theconversation.com/income-inequality-is-getting-worse-in-us-urban-areas-132417.
  • Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging. https://sites.psu.edu/inrpha/
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Huot, Sovanneary and Leif Jensen. 2019. Review of Ploughing New Ground: Food, Farming and Environmental Change in Ethiopia by Getnet Bekele. New York: The New Press. Rural Sociology, 84(3): 624-627.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Brian C. Thiede, Jacqueline Butler, David L. Brown and Leif Jensen. "Income Inequality Across the Rural-Urban Continuum in the United States, 1970-2016." Rural Sociology.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Slack, Tim and Leif Jensen. "The Changing Demography of Rural and Small-Town America." Population Research and Policy Review.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Rhubart, Danielle C., Shannon M. Monnat, Leif Jensen and Claire Pendergrast. "The Unique Impacts of U.S. Social and Health Policies on Rural Population Health and Aging." Public Policy & Aging Report.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Southard, Emily M. L. and Leif Jensen. 2020. "Men's and Women's Migration Related to Agriculture." Chapter 31 (pp. 394-409) in Carolyn E. Sachs, Leif Jensen, Paige Castellanos and Kathleen Sexsmith (Eds.) Handbook on Gender and Agriculture. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2020 Citation: Wang, Donghui and Leif Jensen. "Social Change and Perceptions of Aging in China." Aging and Society.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2020 Citation: Thiede, Brian C., Matt Brooks and Leif Jensen. "Child Poverty Among Immigrants in New Rural Destination States." Demography.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Randell, H, C Gray, & K Grace. 2020. "Stunted from the Start: Early Life Weather and Child Undernutrition in Ethiopia." Social Science & Medicine. Published online ahead of print.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Alexander, S, K Jones, N Bennett, A Budden, M Cox, M Crosas, E Game, J Geary, RD Hardy, J Johnson, S Karcher, N Motzer, J Pittman, H Randell, J Silva, P da Silva, C Strasser, C Strawhacker, A Stuhl, & N Weber. 2020." Qualitative Data Sharing and Synthesis for Sustainability Science." Nature Sustainability. 3: 81-88.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Thiede, Brian C. and Clark Gray. 2020. Characterizing the Indigenous Forest Peoples of Latin America: Results from Census and Satellite Data. World Development 125: 104685.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Slack, Tim, Brian C. Thiede, and Leif Jensen. 2020. Race, Residence, and Underemployment: Fifty Years in Comparative Perspective, 1968-2017. Rural Sociology. 85: 275-315.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2020 Citation: Tickamyer, Ann R. and Siti Kusujiarti. 2020. Riskscapes of Gender, Disaster, and Climate Change in Indonesia. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society 13, July.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2020 Citation: Ann Tickamyer. Rural Sociology. Invited, reviewed, and accepted for Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2nd edition. Forthcoming.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Abdar, Moloud, Mohammad Ehsan Basiri, Junjun Yin, Mahmoud Habibnezhad, Guangqing Chi, Shahla Nemati, and Somayeh Asadi. 2020. "Energy Choices in Alaska: Mining People's Perception and Attitudes from Geotagged Tweets." Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews 124: 109781.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chi, Guangqing, Jing Gao, Donghui Wang, Annelise D. Hagedorn, Kamilya Kelgenbaeva, Luke Smith, and Geoffrey M. Henebry. "Agricultural Productivity at the Oblast Level in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, 19902014: Implications of Demographic and Climate Changes." Research in Globalization.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chi, Guanghua, Fengyang Lin, Guangqing Chi, and Joshua Blumenstock. "A General Approach to Detecting Migration Events in Trace Data." PLOS One.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Wang, Donghui, Annelise D. Hagedorn, and Guangqing Chi. "Remittances and Household Spending Strategies: Evidence from the Life in Kyrgyzstan Study, 20112013." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Wang, Ming, Guangqing Chi, Yosef Bodovski, Sheldon L. Holder, Eugene J. Lengerich, Emily Wasserman, and Alicia C. McDonald. 2020. "Temporal and Spatial Trends and Determinants of Aggressive Prostate Cancer among Black and White Men with Prostate Cancer." Cancer Causes and Control 31(1): 6371.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Kamenetsky, Maria, Guangqing Chi, Donghui Wang, and Jun Zhu. 2019. "Spatial Regression Analysis of Poverty in R." Spatial Demography 7(2): 113147.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Liang, Yun, Junjun Yin, Bing Pan, Guangqing Chi, Clio Andris, Zach Miller, Jack Jorgenson, and Norma Nickerson. 2020. " Understanding Demographics and Experience of Tourists in Yellowstone National Park through Social Media." The Travel and Tourism Research Association, June 1618, 2020, Victoria, Canada.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Bode, Leticia, Pamela Davis-Kean, Lisa Singh, John Abowd, Tanya Berger-Wolf, Ceren Budak, Guangqing Chi, Andy Guess, Jennifer Hill, Adam Hughes, Brad Jensen, Frauke Kreuter, Jonathan Ladd, Margaret Little, Zeina Mneimneh, Kevin Munger, Josh Pasek, Trivellore Raghunathan, Rebecca Ryan, Stuart Soroka, and Michael Traugott. 2020. "Study Designs for Quantitative Social Science Research Using Social Media." [PsyArXiv, https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/zp8q2]
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Singh, Lisa, Shweta Bansal, Leticia Bode, Ceren Budak, Guangqing Chi, Kornraphop Kawintiranon, Colton Padden, Rebecca Vanarsdall, Emily Vraga, and Yanchen Wang. 2020. "A First Look at COVID-19 Information and Misinformation Sharing on Twitter." [arXiv:2003.13907]
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chi, Guangqing. 2020. "#SocialScience: Mining Twitter for Social and Behavioural Research." Research Outreach 115: 2225. https://researchoutreach.org/articles/social-science-mining-twitter-social-behavioural-research/
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chi, Guangqing. 2019. "Environmental Demography." September 13, 2019. Penn State Human Dimensions of Natural Resources and the Environments Graduate Student Organization. [invited talk]
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Yin, Junjun and Guangqing Chi. 2019. "Understanding Spatiotemporal Urban Activity Patterns with Geo-located Twitter data: A GIS-based Synthesis Approach." The annual meeting of North American Regional Science Association, November 1316, Pittsburgh, PA.


Progress 10/01/18 to 09/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:Targeted audiences varied by activity or research pursuit, ranging from reaching the general public through a podcast or webinar, and an invited presentation to a civic group or at a conference. The group also numerous academic and professional meeting presentations with corresponding audiences. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In addition to working with students, especially a graduate student on natural resource dependence, Ann Tickamyer was a senior scholar and resource at a workshop for newer scholars of rural poverty research and policy sponsored by RUPRI and held in Clifty Falls, Indiana, May 28-31. Guangqing Chi's research has supported seven graduate students in the reporting period, who have been trained in the methods associated with the research that they were involved in. The USDA AFRI-funded project on the effects of economic restructuring, demographic change, and income inequality in rural communities has funded one graduate research assistant and her enrollment in the Rural Sociology PhD program at Penn State. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Most of the research was disseminated via publication and presentations at conferences and professional meetings. In addition, Ann Tickamyer recorded a podcast and gave a presentation to a farmer civic organization. She also was interviewed several times by journalists interested in rural poverty and related issues. Leif Jensen provided an invited presentation on "Urban-Rural Variation in Informal Work Activities" to the Panel on Measuring Contingent Work and Alternative Work Arrangements. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, June 2019. Multiple presentations of findings from the pilot research on the mushroom labor shortage have been presented to the American Mushroom Institute and its stakeholders in 2019. Brian Thiede participated in a briefing and retreat for senior U.S. congressional staff members, which focused on rural poverty and development as well as a panel on spatial mismatch in labor markets, with a focus on rural areas, for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Work will continue on the USDA AFRI project on U.S. inequality through both multivariate analysis of the levels and changes in county-level income inequality in the United States. In-depth case studies and fieldwork will be conducted in four nonmetropolitan counties, one in each U.S. region, with high levels of income inequality. With R24 funding from the National Institute on Aging, NIH, work will commence on the development of a research network on rural population health and aging. Work will commence on pilot projects funded by this grant. Submit proposal to the National Institutes of Health to support research on the effects of climatic variability on child and maternal nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa. Submit proposal to the National Science Foundation to understand the effects of environmental change on agro-pastoralist livelihoods in Ethiopia.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Goals 1 & 2 An R24 proposal was developed and submitted by Leif Jensen (PI) and colleagues at Penn State, Syracuse, University of Mississippi, and the University of Colorado to the National Institute on Aging for the development of an interdisciplinary network on rural population health and aging. The five-year $1.6 million project was funded in September, 2019. Goal 2 Continued progress was made on a USDA AFRI-funded project on the effects of economic restructuring and demographic change on income inequality within non-metropolitan and metropolitan U.S. counties. This progress included multiple presentations of findings from this project. Results showed that income inequality has historically been highest in non-metropolitan counties and has remained high across the five decades (1970-2016) that we study. The gap between metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties has narrowed, however, as inequality in metropolitan counties has increased in recent decades. Preparation for fieldwork to study four rural counties with high poverty rates was completed. An exploratory research project identifying causes and consequences of the labor shortage in the PA mushroom industry was conducted with results presented several times to academic and industry audiences. Interviews with 105 Latino/a farmworkers and 20 employers found that a significant majority of employers report the labor shortage as "moderate" or "severe" and that the future of their businesses is threatened in the medium-term by the inability to find sufficient workers to fill harvesting labor demands. The research also found that workers for the most part enjoy the industry's piece-rate payment structure, but often leave jobs for other industries due to the low take-home pay, inconvenient hours that interfere with family needs, perceptions of mistreatment by their supervisors, and the risk of occupational accident and injury. Goal 3 An exploratory research project in rural Honduras was conducted assessing perceptions, impacts, and adaptation potential for coffee producer communities in a region intensely impacted by water shortage and rising heat. Interviews with smallholder coffee producers in three rural communities in Intibucá Honduras, found that most farmers perceive rising heat and more variable rainfall to have negatively affected their coffee crops, maize production, and animal agriculture. Livelihood diversification is the most common strategy to cope with these challenges; however, women's opportunities to engage in new economic activities are much more limited due to their traditional domestic roles. Women also face resource constraints in accessing several adaptation strategies that men have more easily undertaken, which include planting different coffee varietals and establishing irrigation systems.

Publications

  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Katherine Curtis and L�szl� Kulcs�r (2019) Rural Demography. Chapter 22 (pp. 599-618) in Dudley L. Poston, Jr. (editor). Handbook of Population. 2nd edition. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Brown, David L., Nina Glasgow, L�szl� Kulcs�r, Scott Sanders, and Brian Thiede (2018) The multi-scalar organization of aging-related services in US rural places. Journal of Rural Studies 68, pp. 219-229.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Jensen, Leif, Ann Tickamyer, and Tim Slack. Rural-Urban Variation in Informal Work Activities in the United States. Journal of Rural Studies 68:276-284.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Mueller, Tom and Ann R. Tickamyer. A more complete picture: Rural residents relative support for seven forms of natural resource related economic development. Rural Sociology/ DOI:10.1111/ruso.12293
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Ann R. Tickamyer and Kathleen Sexsmith. How to Do Gender Research? Feminist Perspectives on Gender Research in Agriculture. Pp. 57-71 in C. Sachs (ed.) Gender, Agriculture and Agrarian Transformations. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2019 Citation: Tickamyer, Ann R. Rural Poverty: Research and Policy for U.S. Families. Forthcoming as Chapter 1 in Rural Families and Communities in the United States: Facing Challenges and Leveraging Opportunities Jennifer E. Glick, Susan M. McHale, and Valarie King (eds.) National Symposium on Family Issues 10: Rural Families and Communities. Springer.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2019 Citation: Ann Tickamyer. Family Poverty. Invited, reviewed, and accepted for Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2nd edition. Forthcoming.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Review of Enos, R.D. The Space Between Us: Social Geography and Politics. American Journal of Sociology 125 (Sept.).
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Mueller, J.T. and A. Tickamyer. The Role of Values, Conservative Ideology, and Climate Change Beliefs in Rural Support for Extractive and Non-extractive Forms of Natural Resource Development. Presented at the Annual Meetings of the Rural Sociological Society, Richmond, Aug. 9, 2019
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Tickamyer, A. Integrating Gender into Biophysical, Environmental, and Climate Change Research. Presented at 2018 Workshop on Permafrost Coastal Erosion Research Coordination Network (PCE-RCN), University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK, October 11-12, 2019
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Panel Member, The Policy Implications of Rural Poverty Research: Perspectives from the 2019 AECF/RUPRI Rural Poverty Fellowship. Rural Sociological Society, Richmond, VA. Aug. 9, 2019
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Podcast, "Rural Poverty, Spatial Inequality and Rural Health" The Evidence to Impact Collaborative Podcast. https://tunein.com/podcasts/Education-Podcasts/The-Evidence-to-Impact-Collaborative-Podcast-p1240455/?topicId=132851059 June 5, 2019 (with Lisa Davis)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Presentation on rural poverty to local farm organization -- Centre County Ag Forum. March 13, 2019.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Larson, Janelle B., Paige Castellanos, and Leif Jensen. 2019. "Gender, Household Food Security, and Dietary Diversity in Western Honduras." Global Food Security, 20: 170-179.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: "Gender and Leadership in Agricultural Cooperatives: The Case of Cambodia." Paper with Sovanneary Huot, presented by Huot at the 2019 meetings of the Rural Sociological Society. Richmond, VA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C., David L. Brown, Leif Jensen, and Jaclyn L.W. Butler. 2018. Uneven Development and Income Inequality in Rural America, 1970-2015. Presentation. Annual meeting of the American Sociological Associations Sociology of Development Section, Urbana-Champagne, IL. 20 October 2018.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Bikketi, Edward, Esther Njuguna-Mungai, Leif Jensen and Edna Johnny. 2019. "Kinship Structures, Gender, and Groundnut Productivity in Malawi." Chapter 13 (pp. 221-238) in Carolyn E. Sachs (ed.), Gender, Agriculture and Agrarian Transformations. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Ganguly, Sujata, Leif Jensen, Samarendu Mohanty, Sugandha Munshi, Arindam Samaddar, Swati Nayak, and Prakashan Chellattan Veettil. 2019. "Changes in participation of women in Rice Value Chains: Implications for control over decision-making." Chapter 14 (pp. 239-253) in Carolyn E. Sachs (ed.), Gender, Agriculture and Agrarian Transformations. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: "Urban-Rural Variation in Informal Work Activities." Presentation to the Panel on Measuring Contingent Work and Alternative Work Arrangements. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, June 2019.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Sexsmith, Kathleen. (2019). Decoding worker reliability: Modern agrarian values and immigrant labor on New York dairy farms. Rural Sociology. Online first.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Sexsmith, Kathleen. Worker perspectives on the labor shortage on Pennsylvania mushroom farms. Rural Sociological Association. (Richmond, VA, August 2019).
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Weiler, Anelyse, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern and Kathleen Sexsmith. Parallel precarity: a comparison of United States and Canadian Agricultural Guestworker Programs. American Association of Geographers. (Washington, DC, April 2019)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Christian Scott**, Kathleen Sexsmith, Michaela Hoffelmeyer**, and Guangqing Chi. Women are Fond of Money Now: Gendered Migration Patterns and Social Change in Rural Kyrgyzstan. Population Association of America. (Austin, TX, April 2019).
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Dudley, Mary Jo and Kathleen Sexsmith. Farmworker Youth and Uneven Legal Geographies in Rural Upstate New York. Migrant Illegality Across Uneven Legal Geography: A Two-Part Convening. (Brown University, October 2018)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Hoffelmeyer, Michaela**, Kathleen Sexsmith, Kathryn Brasier, Hannah Whitley**, and Elisabeth Garner**. Farming against the grain: A spatial and temporal analysis of U.S. women farmers, 1997-2012. Rural Sociological Association. (Portland, OR, July 2018).
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2019 Citation: Gretchen Purser, Fabiola Ortiz Valdez, Kathleen Sexsmith, Rebecca Fuentes & Carly Fox. (forthcoming 2019). Milking Research for Social Change: Immigrant Dairy Farmworkers in Upstate New York. Ch 10 in Susan Greenbaum, Glenn Jacobs, and Prentice Zinn (Eds). Collaborating for Change: A Casebook of Participatory Action Research. Rutgers University Press.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Kiely, Richard and Kathleen Sexsmith. 2018. Innovative Considerations in Faculty Development and S-LCE: New Perspectives for the Future. Ch 12 In Becca Berkey, Cara Meixner, Patrick Green, and Emily Eddins (Eds). Reconceptualizing Faculty Development in Service-Learning/ Community Engagement: Exploring Intersections, Frameworks, and Models of Practice. Stylus Publishing. pp 283-314.
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Sexsmith, Kathleen. (2019). Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Womens Empowerment in Agriculture. A Guide Based on the Sustainable Development Goals for Development Organizations. Winnipeg, Canada: International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C., and Matthew M. Brooks. 2018. "Child Poverty Across Immigrant Generations in the United States, 19932016: Evidence Using the Official and Supplemental Poverty Measures." Demographic Research 39: 1065-1080.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C. 2018. Paper. Poverty and the Safety Net Among Immigrant Children. Institute for Research on Poverty Seminar Series, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 29 November 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C. 2018. Climate Variability and Human Migration in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Evidence Using Census Data. Presentation. Permafrost Coastal Erosion Research Coordination Network meeting, Fairbanks, AK. 12 October 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C. 2018. Demography and Sustainable Agriculture. Presentation. SESYNC Pursuit meeting on Environmental and Socioeconomic Interactions in Food Systems, Annapolis, MD, 22 August 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Zhou, Shuai, Guangqing Chi, Brian C. Thiede, Zhen Lei, and Huanguang Qiu. 2018. Subsidized Relocation and the Willingness to Move: The First Look at the Targeted Poverty Alleviation Project in China. Paper. Annual meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, Portland, OR, 28 July 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Sexsmith, Kathleen. Worker perspectives on the labor shortage on Pennsylvania mushroom farms: Preliminary findings. April 18, 2019.  Invited speaker to American Mushroom Institutes Mushroom Employment Safety and Health Committee. (Avondale, PA). Presentation co-authors Maria Gorgo-Gourovitch, Effie Smith and Ilse Huerta.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Sexsmith, Kathleen. Worker perspectives on the labor shortage on Pennsylvania mushroom farms: Preliminary findings. May 2, 2019. Invited speaker to Mushroom Farmers of Pennsylvania meeting. (Presented via telephone). Presentation co-authors Maria Gorgo-Gourovitch, Effie Smith and Ilse Huerta.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Sexsmith, Kathleen. Labor shortage in the PA mushroom industry: Worker and employer perspectives. July 23, 2019.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C. 2018. Presentation/Panelist. Spotlight on Issues for Rural Americans. Pop-up panel on Jobs Gaps: Employer Demand and Labor Supply Mismatch, Institute for Research on Poverty and Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (HHS), Washington, DC. 11 December 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C. 2018. Panelist. Organized panel on Continuing the Conversations: Developing a Research Agenda for Rural Poverty. Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, Portland, OR. 27 July 2018.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chi, Guangqing, Derrick Shapley, Tse-Chuan Yang, and Donghui Wang. 2019. "Lost in the Black Belt South: Health Outcomes and Transportation Infrastructure." Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 191(S2): 297.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chi, Guangqing, Donghui Wang, and Annelise Hagedorn. 2019. "Future Interstate Highway System Demands: Predictions Based on Population Projections." Case Studies on Transport Policy 7(2): 384394.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C. 2018. Child Poverty Differentials Across Immigrant Generations: Evidence Using the Supplemental Poverty Measure. Poster. Annual meeting of the Population Association of America, Denver, CO, 27 April 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C. 2018. Climate Effects on Early Childhood Malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa. Paper. African Studies Seminar Series, The Pennsylvania State University. 14 March 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C. 2018. Demographic and Health Impacts of Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa. Paper. Population Research Institute Brown Bag Speaker Series, The Pennsylvania State University. 13 March 2018.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Pu, Yingxia, Xinyi Zhao, Guangqing Chi, Shuhe Zhao, Jiechen Wang, Zhibin Jin, and Junjun Yin. 2019. "Design and Implementation of a Parallel Geographically Weighted k-Nearest Neighbor Classifier." Computers and Geosciences 127: 111122.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chen, Wanxu, Guangqing Chi, and Jiangfeng Li. 2019. "The Spatial Effects of Land Use and Land Cover Change on Ecosystem Services Intensity at the County Level in China, 19952015." Science of the Total Environment 669: 459470.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Kasu, Bishal and Guangqing Chi. 2019. "Transportation Infrastructures and Socioeconomic Statuses: A Spatial Regression Analysis at the County Level in the Continental United States, 19702010." Spatial Demography 7(1): 2756.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Parsafard, Mohsen, Guangqing Chi, Xiaobo Qu, Xiaopeng Li, and Haizhong Wang. 2019. "Error Measures for Trajectories Estimations with Geo-tagged Mobility Sample Data." IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems 20(7): 25662583.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Xu, Feng, Hung Chak Ho, Guangqing Chi, and Zhanqi Wang. 2019. "Abandoned Rural Lands: Using Machine Learning Methods to Identify Rural Residential Lands Vulnerable to be Abandoned in Mountainous Regions." Habitat International 84: 4356.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Pu, Yingxia, Xiao Han, Guangqing Chi, Yaping Wang, Ying Ge, and Fanhua Kong. 2019. "The Impact of Spatial Spillovers on Interprovincial Migration in China, 20052010." Regional Studies 53(8): 11251136.
  • Type: Books Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chi, Guangqing and Jun Zhu. 2019. Spatial Regression Models for the Social Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chi, Guangqing. 2019. "Demographic Forecasting and Future Interstate Highway System Demands." Pp. 313350 in Renewing the National Commitment to the Interstate Highway System: A Foundation for the Future, edited by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chi, Guangqing. 2019. "National Science Foundation: Beyond Standard Grants: NSFs Ten Big Ideas." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, August 12, 2019, New York.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chi, Guangqing. 2019. "Environmental Demography." Presented at the International University of Kyrgyzstan, July 5, 2019, Bishkek, the Kyrgyz Republic.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: : Chi, Guangqing. 2019. "The (Mis)Representativeness of Twitter Data for Population (and Health) Research." Presented at the Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design (BERD) Group Seminar Series, the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, University Park, PA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Zhou, Shuai and Guangqing Chi. 2019. "Land Rental in Rural China: The Impacts of Demographics, Household Economy, Land Endowment, and Social Security." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, August 7-August 10, 2019, Richmond, VA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chi, Guangqing, Yin Junjun, Jennifer Van Hook, Eric Plutzer, and Heng Xu. 2019. "Twitter Demographics: Exploring the Generalizability of Twitter Data for Population Research." Presented at the International Conference on Computational Social Science, July 17-July 20, 2019, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chi, Guangqing, Yin Junjun, Jennifer Van Hook, Eric Plutzer, and Heng Xu. 2019. "Twitter Demographics: Exploring the Generalizability of Twitter Data for Population Research." Presented at the International Conference on Web and Social Media, June 11, 2019, Munich, Germany.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Yin, Junjun and Guangqing Chi. 2019. "An Evaluation of Geo-located Twitter Data for Measuring Migration." Presented at the IUSSP Research Workshop on Digital Demography in the Era of Big Data, June 6-June 7, 2019, Seville, Spain.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Scott, Christian, Michaela Hoffelmeyer, Kathleen Sexsmith, and Guangqing Chi. 2019. ""Women Are Fond of Money Now": Gendered Migration Patterns and Social Change in Rural Kyrgyzstan." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, April 10-April 13, 2019, Austin, TX.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Zhou, Shuai, Guangqing Chi, Brian Thiede, Zhen Lei, Jiquan Chen, and Huanguang Qiu. 2019. "Subsidized Relocation and the Willingness to Move: Evidence from the Targeted Poverty Alleviation Project in China." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, April 10-April 13, 2019, Austin, TX.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chi, Guangqing, Yin Junjun, Jennifer Van Hook, Eric Plutzer, and Heng Xu. 2019. "The Generalizability of Twitter Data for Population Research." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, April 10-April 13, 2019, Austin, TX.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chi, Guangqing, Annelise Hagedorn, Christian Scott, Jennifer Glick, and Scott Yabiku. 2019. "The Spatial Effects of Land Use and Land Cover Change on Ecosystem Services Intensity at the County Level in China, 19952015." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, April 3-April 7, 2019 Washington, D.C.


Progress 10/01/17 to 09/30/18

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences for our activities are local decision makers, extension professionals, academics and the general public. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?A number of graduate students contributed to the research documented here, including contributing chapters to the edited volume "Rural Poverty in the United States." How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Presentations at professional meetings and publications disseminated the work to academics. A policy brief published by the University of Wisconsin-Madison targeted extension and community development professionals. A webinar conducted through the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin targeted a broad audience. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Laszlo Kulcsar will finalize a book chapter on rural demography in the Handbook of Population (2nd Edition by Dudley Poston). All will continue to conduct the research, publish the results in journals, and present the findings in conferences. Specifically, Brian Thiede and Leif Jensen will continue work on a project exploring the sociodemographic and economic determinants of county-level income inequality. They also will complete work on a project examining the foreign-born population and workforce in Pennsylvania. Thiede will begin work on a project on the effect of income inequality on population health. Leif Jensen will submit a grant proposal to the National Institute on Aging for a networking project on the rural aging population in the United States. Guangqing Chi will submit a proposal for research on demographic and other implications of permafrost deterioration in Alaska. Kathy Sexsmith will continue work on a project examining foreign-born and other workers in the mushroom industry in Pennsylvania.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? ?he research results and impacts of the Penn State participants in this Multistate Research Project contribute primarily to its first two goals: (1) understanding rural population dynamics and (2) how that relates to socioeconomic well-being. Brian Thiede, Leif Jensen, and David Brown (Cornell) began work on a study of the socio-demographic and economic determinants of income inequality at the county level in the United States. Their preliminary findings show that local income inequality has increased since 1970, though these increases have been greatest in metropolitan areas, and nonmetropolitan counties with relatively large populations. Thiede and Jensen also continued research on behalf of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania examining the economic and demographic characteristics of the foreign-born workforce in rural Pennsylvania. Results indicate that the foreign-born represent a smaller share of the rural than urban workforce; that the foreign-born members of the rural workforce are clustered in high and low education categories; and that as a group they are experiencing growing disadvantages and challenges to integration, with declining levels of educational attainment and English language skills, and increasing rates of poverty. Jensen completed work on a collaborative project assessing commuting zone (labor market area) delineations for the United States and specifying new delineations along with statistics describing the quality of clusters. "Hits" on the project website (nearly 100 in a month) and inquiries by researchers desiring to download the delineations suggest a positive impact on the research community. Use of these delineations promise to yield a more nuanced understanding of how differences across rural labor markets affect the well-being of people and families living within them. The income inequality project of Thiede et al. described above plans to use these delineations in future work. Kathy Sexsmith led an applied, gender-sensitive study of the causes and consequences of the labor shortage on Pennsylvania mushroom farms through close collaboration with the American Mushroom Institute. Preliminary results from interviews with 66 immigrant workers on six farms have revealed that hardened immigration policy cannot alone explain the labor supply problem on Pennsylvania mushroom farms; rather, lack of access to childcare, conflict between workers and supervisors, perceptions of low pay, and the physical ardor of the work are more commonly cited reasons for worker attrition. As an indicator of impact, Sexsmith presented preliminary results and remaining research goals to industry leaders at the November 2019 Penn State - Mushroom Industry Strategic Planning meeting. The results from multiple transportation studies by Guangqing Chi and his collaborators and former students show that transportation infrastructure (railroads, highways, and airports) play evolving and complementary roles in affecting rural development. This work also demonstrates the spatial variation of transportation impacts on rural development. This provides essential insights for policy and decision makers about how to optimize resource allocations for growth and development, and can be used to explore resilience in the face of environmental shocks and stressors. Thiede, Laszlo Kulcsar, and colleagues analyzed county-level data for the period 1990-2010 to examine the implications of the population aging that is endemic to rural America for access to services within these counties. Their study documents that shifts from younger to moderate median ages has beneficial implications for the growth of service establishments, but that shifts from moderate to older median ages reduces this growth. The results were also disseminated in a policy brief published by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Metrics on the website indicated that the brief reached hundreds of extension and outreach professionals. Ann Tickamyer's co-edited book on rural poverty has had a positive impact. The volume summarizes what is known from the best research about the prevalence, causes, consequences, and policy implications of rural poverty in the United States today. Through a variety of outreach mechanisms Tickamyer and her colleagues have reached far beyond academic audiences. The volume has led to several opportunities to connect with practitioners and policy makers as well as more general lay audiences through invitations to participate in events geared toward these groups. This includes conferences sponsored by the Rural Policy Research Institute and the National Association of Counties, a webinar conducted for the Institute for Research on Poverty designed specifically to reach practitioners and policy makers, a podcast aimed the Pennsylvania citizenry, several presentations to the general public, and interviews with journalists about rural poverty. Similarly, Brian Thiede gave a presentation on rural labor markets at an event sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in Washington, D.C. for leadership at HHS and other agencies, including USDA.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Yang, T.-C. and L. Jensen. 2017. "Climatic conditions and human mortality: Spatial and regional variation in the United States." Population and Environment 38:261-285.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Slack, T., M. R. Cope, L. Jensen, A. R. Tickamyer. 2017. "Social Embeddedness, Formal Labor Supply, and Participation in Informal Work." International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 37: 248-264.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Kazeem, A. and L. Jensen. 2017. "Orphan Status, School Attendance, and Relationship to Household Head in Nigeria." Demographic Research 36: 659-690.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Scott, K., C. C. Hinrichs, and L. Jensen. 2018. "Re-imagining the Good Life." Journal of Rural Studies 59: 127-131.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Jensen, L. 2018. "Understanding Rural Social Class in an Era of Global Challenge." Rural Sociology 83:227-243.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Wornell, E. J., L. Jensen, A. R. Tickamyer. 2018. "The Role of Informal Work in the Livelihood Strategies of U.S. Households." Pp. 117-138 in I. A. Horodnic, P. Rogers, C. C. Williams, and L. Momtazian (eds.) The Informal Economy: Exploring Drivers and Practices. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Thiede, B.C. and Gray, C.L. 2017. Heterogeneous Climate Effects on Human Migration in Indonesia. Population and Environment 39: 147-172.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Thiede, B. C. and T. Slack. 2017. The Old versus New Economies and their Impacts. Pp. 231-256 in Rural Poverty in the United States, A. Tickamyer, J. Sherman, and J. Warlick (Eds.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Thiede, B. C., H. Kim, and T. Slack. 2017. Marriage, Work, and Racial Inequalities in Poverty: Evidence from the U.S. Journal of Marriage and Family 79: 1241-1257.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C., Scott R. Sanders, and Daniel T. Lichter. 2018. "Born Poor? Racial Diversity, Inequality, and the American Pipeline." Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 4 (2):206228.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, B. C., D. T. Lichter, and T. Slack. 2018. Working, but Poor: The Good Life in Rural America? Journal of Rural Studies 59: 183-193.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Sexsmith, Kathleen. 2017. But We Cant Call 9-1-1: Undocumented Migrant Farmworkers and Access to Social Protection on New York Dairies. Oxford Development Studies, 45(1): 96-111.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, B., Kim, H., & Valasik, M. (2018). The Spatial Concentration of America's Rural Poor Population: A Postrecession Update. Rural Sociology, 83(1), 109-144
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C. Kim, H., & Valasik, M. 2017. Concentrated Poverty Increased in Both Rural and Urban Areas Since 2000, Reversing Declines in the 1990s. Carsey School of Public Policy National Issue Brief. Durham, NH: Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire. No. 129.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: "Child Poverty Among Immigrants in New Rural Destination States." Paper with Brian Thiede, presented by Thiede at a conference on Rural Poverty Fifty Years After The People Left Behind. March, 2018. Washington, DC.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: "Race, Residence, and Underemployment: 50 Years in Comparative Perspective, 1968-2017." Paper with Tim Slack and Brian Thiede, presented by Slack at a conference on Rural Poverty Fifty Years After The People Left Behind. March, 2018. Washington, DC.
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, B. (Principal Investigator), Jensen, L., Brown, D. L. "Economic Restructuring, Demographic Change, and Income Inequality in Rural America," National Institute of Food and Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture. $482,505.00. (February 2018-Feburary 2021).
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, B. (Principal Investigator), Jensen, L. "Economic Implications of Pennsylvania's Foreign-Born Population." Center for Rural Pennsylvania. $50,000. (January-December 2018).
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, Brian C., Scott Sanders, and Daniel T. Lichter. 2018. "Demographic Drivers of In-Work Poverty: Family Formation and Change." Pp. 109-123 in Handbook of Research on In-Work Poverty edited by H. Lohmann and I. Marx. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, B., D.L. Brown, S. Sanders, N. Glasgow and L.J. Kulcsar. 2017. "A Demographic Deficit? Local Population Aging and Access to Services in Rural America, 1990-2010." Rural Sociology 83:44-74.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Jensen, L. and D. M. Ely. 2017. "Measures of Poverty and Implications for Portraits of Rural Hardship." In J. Sherman, A. R. Tickamyer and J. Warlick (eds.), Rural Poverty in the United States. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, B. (April 6, 2018). "The Challenges and Opportunities of Rural Labor Markets," Aspen Senior Congressional Staff Network on Mobility from Poverty, The Aspen Institute, Garrett County, MD (off-site visit).
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: L�szl� J. Kulcs�r (2016) "Depopulation and its Challenges for Development: An International Comparison". Journal of Population Problems 12, pp. 323-349.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2017 Citation: David L. Brown, Nina Glasgow, Scott Sanders, L�szl� J. Kulcs�r and Brian Thiede (2017) "The organization of services in rural places with extreme population ageing" (presented at the XXVII Congress of the European Society of Rural Sociology, Krakow, Poland, July 24-27, 2017)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: L�szl� J. Kulcs�r and David L. Brown (2017) "Challenges and Opportunities: A Conceptual Exploration of Aging in Rural Eastern Europe" (presented at the XXVII Congress of the European Society of Rural Sociology, Krakow, Poland, July 24-27, 2017)
  • Type: Books Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Tickamyer, Ann R., Jennifer Sherman, and Jennifer Warlick (eds). 2017. Rural Poverty in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press. (Recipient of the 2018 RSS Buttel Award for Outstanding Scholarly Achievement) .
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Slack, Tim, Michael R. Cope, Leif Jensen, Ann R. Tickamyer. 2017. Social Embeddedness, Formal Labor Supply, and Informal Work. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. 37:248-64.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Tickamyer, Ann R. and Emily Wornell. How to Explain Poverty. 2017. Pp 84-114 in Rural Poverty in the United States, edited by A. Tickamyer, J. Sherman and J. Warlick. NY: Columbia University Press.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Thiede, B. (September 26, 2017). "Economic Disadvantage, Employment, and Policy in Rural America," Annual Poverty and Research Policy Forum, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Washington, DC.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: L�szl� J. Kulcs�r and David L. Brown (2017) Population Aging in Eastern Europe: Toward a Coupled Micro-Macro Framework. Regional Statistics 7, pp. 115-134.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Aistrup, J. A., Bulatewicz, T., Kulcsar, L. J., Peterson, J. M., Welch, S. M., and Steward, D. R. (2017) Conserving the Ogallala Aquifer in southwestern Kansas: from the wells to people, a holistic coupled naturalhuman model. Hydrology and Earth Systems Science 21, pp. 6167-6183.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2018 Citation: Kasu, Bishal and Guangqing Chi. Accepted. "The Evolving and Complementary Impacts of Transport Infrastructures on Population and Employment Change in the United States, 1970 2010." Population Research and Policy Review. COI: 10.1007/s11113-018-9491-3
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chi, Guangqing, Derrick Shapley, Tse-Chuan Yang, and Donghui Wang. Accepted. "Lost in the Black Belt South: Health Outcomes and Transportation Infrastructure." Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chi, Guangqing and Donghui Wang. 2018. "Population Projection Accuracy: The Impacts of Sociodemographics, Accessibility, Land Use, and Neighbor Characteristics." Population, Space and Place DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2129.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Kasu, Bishal and Guangqing Chi. 2018. "Intercity Passenger Rails: Facilitating the Spatial Spillover Effects of Population and Employment Growth in the United States, 20002010." Journal of Urban Planning and Development DOI: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)UP.1943-5444.0000477.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Kasu, Bishal and Guangqing Chi. 2018. "Transportation Infrastructures and Socioeconomic Statuses: A Spatial Regression Analysis at the County Level in the Continental United States, 1970 2010." Spatial Demography DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40980-018-0045-4.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Li, Chuo, Guangqing Chi, and Robert Jackson. 2018. "Neighborhood Built Environment and Walking Behaviors: Evidence from the Rural American South." Indoor and Built Environment 27(7): 938952.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Li, Chuo, Amir Ghiasi, Xiaopeng Li, and Guangqing Chi. 2018. "Sociodemographics and Access to Organic and Local Food: A Case Study of New Orleans, Louisiana." Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning. 79: 141150.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chi, Guangqing and Hung Chak Ho. 2018. "Population Stress: A Spatiotemporal Analysis of Population Change and Land Development at the County Level in the Continental United States, 20002010." Land Use Policy 70(1): 128137
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chen, Xinxiang, Guanghua Chi, and Guangqing Chi. 2018. "Do Airports Boost Economic Development by Attracting Talent? An Empirical Investigation at the Sub-County Level." Social Science Quarterly 99(1): 313329.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chi, Guangqing. 2018. "Coupled Pasture-Migrant Systems in Montane Agropastoralist Communities: Untangling Interactions of Environmental Change, Remittances, Demographics, and Children's Well-Being." June 12, 2018. Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Scott, Christian and Guangqing Chi. 2018. Impacts of Labor Migration and Remittances on Household Dynamics: A Grounded Theory Study of the Kyrgyz Republic. Presented at the 81st Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, July 2629, 2018, Portland, OR
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Zhou, Shuai, Guangqing Chi, Brian Thiede, Zhen Lei, and Huanguang Qiu. 2018. "Subsidized Relocation and the Willingness to Move: The First Look at the Targeted Poverty Alleviation Project in China." Presented at the 81st Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, July 2629, 2018, Portland, OR.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Xiao, Ming, Vladimir Romanovsky, Benjamin Jones, Guangqing Chi, Kathleen Halvorsen, Louise Farquharson. 2018. Develop a Transdisciplinary Research Network to Identify Challenges of and Potential Solutions to Permafrost Coastal Erosion and Its Socioecological Impacts in the Arctic. Presented at EUCOP5, June 23July 1, 2018, France.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Scott, Christian and Guangqing Chi. 2018. Household Food Security in Mountainous Agropastoral Kyrgyzstan. Presented at the Joint Annual Meeting of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society and the Association for the Study of Food and Society, June 1316, 2018, Madison, WI.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Scott, Christian and Guangqing Chi. 2018. Household Food Security and Public Health in Rural Southern Kyrgyzstan. Presented at the Unite for Sight, 2018 Global Health & Innovation Conference, April 1415, 2018, New Haven, CT.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Scott, Christian and Guangqing Chi. 2018. Fresh Air and Clean Water: Sense of Place in the Southern Kyrgyz Highlands. Presented at the 78th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, April 37, 2018, Philadelphia, PA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Wang, Donghui, Junjun Yin, and Guangqing Chi. 2018. Climate Change Sentiment on Twitter in Alaska: A Spatial-Temporal Analysis. Presented at the 4th Annual International Conference on Computational Social Science, July 1315, 2018, Evanston, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chi, Guangqing, Annelise Hagedorn, Christian Scott, Jennifer Glick, and Scott Yabiku. 2018. Left-behind Children: The Impacts of Labor Migration, Remittances, Poverty, and Family Processes in Rural Kyrgyz Highlands. Presented at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, April 2628, 2018, Denver, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chi, Guangqing and Hung Chak Ho. 2018. Population Stress: A Spatiotemporal Analysis of Population Change and Land Development at the County Level in the Contiguous United States, 20012011. Presented at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, April 2628, 2018, Denver, CO.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Tickamyer, Ann R. Jennifer Sherman, and Jennifer Warlick. 2017. Politics and Policy: Barriers and Opportunities for Rural Peoples. Pp. 439-447 in Rural Poverty in the United States, edited by A. Tickamyer, J. Sherman and J. Warlick. NY: Columbia University Press.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2018 Citation: Tickamyer, A. Panel member: Continuing the Conversations: Developing a Research Agenda for Rural Poverty. Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, Portland, OR, July 27, 2018.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2018 Citation: Tickamyer, A. Concluding Remarks. RUPRI Rural Poverty Research Conference: Fifty Years After the People Left Behind. Washington, DC, March 21-22, 2018. http://www.rupri.org/areas-of-work/poverty-human-services-policy/2018-rural-poverty-conference/
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Jensen, Leif, Ann Tickamyer, Tim Slack. Spatial Variation in Informal Work Activities in the United States. Presented at the Trans Atlantic Rural Research Network Meeting in Aberystwyth, UK, May 31, 2017.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Tickamyer, A. Presenter and Panel Member, Spatial Inequality in Rural Areas. The Future of Rural Studies as an Interdisciplinary Enterprise. Mann Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Feb. 2, 2017