SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: HATCH
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1014520
• Multistate No.: W-4001
• Project Start Date: Oct 3, 2017
• Project End Date: Sep 30, 2022
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI
(N/A)
COLUMBIA,MO 65211

Performing Department
Social Sciences

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. Rather, they 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. We propose to undertake a comprehensive analysis of current population processes affecting U.S. rural areas and provide to stakeholders policy-relevant research findings on the demographic consequences of socioeconomic and environmental change. The proposed project's work will build on output from its predecessor, W3001, which focused on demographic impacts stemming from the housing market collapse and Great Recession. A significant portion of W3001 research focused on two topics identified by stakeholders as critical concerns: linkages between job loss and demographic change; and demographic dynamics affecting the rural housing market. Similarly, in addition to work on basic demographic processes, this project is designed around two other, closely related objectives: describe the interrelationships between rural population change and the prosperity of rural places; and describe the interrelationships between environmental shocks and stressors and the well-being of rural people, places, and institutions.Summary of of the Missouri UnitThe past decades have seen continuous reverse migration from cities to rural places, particularly those endowed with high natural amenities, in the US. This far-reaching demographic trend has made the social and economic consequences of migration in rural destination communities an important research agenda in multiple social science disciplines. The relationships between population mobility and rural inequality have been generally understudied in the existing literature. Several early studies on rural turnaround migration in the US were conducted in the Ozark Plateau extending primarily across southern Missouri, northwestern-northcentral Arkansas, and northeastern Oklahoma (e.g., Dailey and Campbell 1981; Nolan et al. 1981). However, this region has been largely overlooked in more recent literature. The Great Recession (December 2007-June 2009) has had a profound impact throughout many parts of rural America including the Ozarks. Therefore, its social and economic changes during the pre- and post-recession periods provides an important geographic and temporal context for examining the evolving relationships between rural population dynamics and socioeconomic well-being. The primary objective of this research is to understand the effect of migration on local inequality in the Ozarks through a longitudinal perspective. There are two guiding questions: (1) what is the association between migration and economic inequality in this region during the study period of 2000-2015? And (2) where did Ozarks residents relocate to during the Great Recession and what factors are associated with resettlement decisions? Answers to these questions will provide direct research and policy implications related to population and sustainable development.

Animal Health Component

50%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

50%

Applied

50%

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
608	6050	3080	50%
803	6099	3080	50%

Knowledge Area
803 - Sociological and Technological Change Affecting Individuals, Families, and Communities; 608 - Community Resource Planning and Development;

Subject Of Investigation
6099 - People and communities, general/other; 6050 - Communities, areas, and regions;

Field Of Science
3080 - Sociology;

Keywords

rural migration

economic inequality

great recession

ozark plateau

research data center

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
General Methods of the Multistate ProjectAll 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.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, as needed.Specific Methods of the Missouri UnitThe analysis will draw on the US Census data and the American Community Survey (ACS) data for 2000-2015. In the first phase, we'll build a three-point (2005, 2010, and 2015) dataset for all counties and possible lower-level geographic units (e.g., cities or census places) in the Ozarks region. The data will include information on net migration rate (measured as the difference between in- and out-migration per 1000 population during the previous five years), economic inequality (measured as the Gini index or index of income concentration), and other sociodemographic and economic indicators such as total population, percent of White population, and per capita income. We will conduct panel regression analysis to evaluate the relationship between net migration rate and the Gini index while controlling for the effects of relevant factors. The analysis will also be repeated at different spatial scales (county and possible lower levels of analysis).In Phase II, we will purposively select a set of migration "hotspots" (places with greater net migration rates) in the study region based on the data and findings from the previous stage, and further analyze the in- and out-migration flows of these areas during the Great Recession. The ACS survey asks if a household head lives at the current address a year ago, and where he or she lived one year ago if the answer is no (Question 15 for Person 1). We can track people who moved in and out of the sample sites and those whose residences remained in the same communities during the Great Recession using this restricted information, and compare the sociodemographic and economic characteristics (e.g., age, sex, race, place of birth, marital status, education, household income, and employment status) of these three groups of respondents. Additionally, using a subset of the data that contains respondents who stayed in the study sites or relocated to other places during this period, we will examine the demographic and socioeconomic factors (see above) associated with relocation decisions through a multiple logistic regression model. The key hypothesis is that individuals with lower household income and/or educational attainment are more likely to leave the migration "hotspots" during the Great Recession. Finally, we will compare and synthesize main findings from both study phases.Accessing the restricted data through the MU Research Data Center (RDC) is key for the execution of this project since our analysis requires greater details in relevant variables and data at geographic levels lower than county. Similar data was used previously in a study of the resettlement and well-being of New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina (Sastry and Gregor 2013). The finer-level information on respondents' current and past places of residence (down to the zip code level) available in the restricted ACS data is essential for further analyzing the characteristics of rural in- and out-migrants as well as non-migrants. The restricted data also provides larger sample sizes than the ACS Public Use Microdata Sample data, and removes the top-coding of income and several other person/household variables. Therefore, the detailed residence information combined with the unaltered data on major variables will allow us to analyze the resettlement patterns of Ozark residents during the Great Recession and the factors associated with their out-migration decisions. There is no comparable publicly available data that can be used to answer such research questions.

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

Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences of research findings include peer scientists in relevant disciplines (e.g., sociology/rural sociology, demography, environmental/natural resource sociology, geography, environmental science), regional and federal natural resource agenceis, and local community organizations and leaders. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?I have completed the Special Sworn Status (SSS) and Personal Identity Verification (PIV) paperwork, and gained access to restricted American Community Survey data. This project also supported the development of an NSF CAREER proposal entitlted An Integrative Community Interactional Approach to Studying Migration, Community and Sustainability in Rural America. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?I have disseminated research findings through referred academic publications and professional meeting presentations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Review and analyze the restricted American Community Survey data, and document findings in manuscript. Also continue to develop research proposals for external funding support.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? I continued to focus on project goals #1 and #2 during this reporting period. My Research Data Center project was officially approved by the Center for Economic Studies of the U.S. Census Bureau (see below the project abstract). Patterns and Determinants of Out-Migration from High-Amenity Rural Areas: A Case Study of the Ozark Plateau The past decades have seen continuous reverse migration from cities to rural places, particularly those endowed with high natural amenities (e.g., scenic landscapes, abundant outdoor recreational opportunities, and mild climate), in the United States. This far-reaching demographic trend has made the social and economic consequences of migration in rural destination communities an important research agenda in multiple social science disciplines including demography, sociology, economics, geography, and public affairs. Increased in-migration is generally assumed beneficial to overcoming long-standing problems facing rural areas such as stagnant economic development and "brain drain" (Wilkinson 1991). Nevertheless, previous studies have also shown a series of migration-induced problems for infrastructure management/planning, social well-being, civic engagement, and environmental conservation (Abrams et al. 2012; Nelson 2001; Price and Clay 1980). Several early studies on rural turnaround migration in the US were conducted in the Ozark Plateau extending across southern Missouri, northwestern-northcentral Arkansas, northeastern Oklahoma, and the extreme southeastern Kansas (e.g., Dailey and Campbell 1981; Nolan et al. 1981). However, this region has been largely overlooked in more recent literature. The Great Recession (December 2007-June 2009) has had a profound impact throughout many parts of rural America including the small towns and rural areas in the Ozarks. Therefore, rural social and economic changes in this region during the pre-recession, recession and post-recession periods provide an important context for examining the evolving relationships between rural population dynamics and socioeconomic well-being. In this project we will use restricted data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) to examine the in- and out-migration patterns of residents in high-amenity rural areas in the Ozarks, and the sociodemographic and economic factors associated with their resettlement decisions.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Qin, H., Y. Prasetyo, M. Bass, C. Sanders, E. Prentice, and Q. Nguyen. 2019. Seeing the forest for the trees: A bibliometric analysis of environmental and resource sociology. Society & Natural Resources (published online first).
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Rodriguez-Alcala, M., H. Qin, and S. C. Jeanetta. 2019. The role of acculturation and social capital in access to health care: A meta-study on Hispanics in the US. Journal of Community Health 44(6): 1224-1252.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Vickery, J., H. Brenkert-Smith, and H. Qin. 2019. Using conjoint constitution to understand responses to slow-moving environmental change: The case of mountain pine beetle in north-central Colorado. Environmental Sociology 6(2): 182-193.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Qin, H., C. Lu, P. Jiang, X. Gao. 2019. A comparative review of American environmental and natural resource sociologies: Also on the sociology of environmental and resource sociology. Sociological Review of China 7(3): 8496 (in Chinese).
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Qin, H., E. Prentice, H. Brenkert-Smith, C. Sanders, and J. Vickery. 2019. Mountain Pine Beetles and Colorado Forests: Findings from a Re-Survey of Colorado Community Residents. University of Missouri-Columbia. Available online at: https://hdl.handle.net/10355/70377.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Hl�sny, T., P. Krokene, A. Liebhold, C. Montagn�-Huck, J. M�ller, H. Qin, K. Raffa, M.-J. Schelhaas, R. Seidl, M. Svoboda, H. Viiri. 2019. Living with Bark Beetles: Impacts, Outlooks and Management Responses. From Science to Policy 8. European Forest Institute.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2019 Citation: Qin, H., M. Bass, C. Sanders, and B. Bekee. Community and Natural Resources: A Bibliometric Analysis and Overview. The Community Development Society Annual International Conference, Columbia, MO, July 1417, 2019.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2019 Citation: Qin, H., H. Brenkert-Smith, M. Bass, and E. Prentice. Changing Risk Perception and Action in Response to Forest Insect Disturbance in North-Central Colorado. International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, Oshkosh, WI, June 27, 2019.

Progress 10/03/17 to 09/30/18

Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences of research findings include peer scientists in relevant disciplines (e.g., sociology/rural sociology, demography, environmental/natural resource sociology, geography, environmental science), regional and federal natural resource agenceis, and local community organizations and leaders. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project helped me secure research funding from the Population, Education, and Health Center at the University of Missouri-Columbia. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?I have disseminated research findings through referred academic publications and professional meeting presentations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Submit the predominant purpose statement and proposal to the Center for Economic Studies of the Census Bureau. Assess and analyze the restricted American Community Survey data after receving approval from the Census Bureau, and document findings in manuscript.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? My research efforts during this reporting period focsed on project goals #1 and #2. I received a Research Data Center Small Grant ("Rural Migration, Economic Inequaltiy, and the Great Recession: A Case Study in the Ozarks") from the Population, Education, and Health Center at the University of Missouri-Columbia. The project will use confidential American Community Survey data through the MU Research Data Center. I have completed multiple drafts of predominant purpose statement and proposal to be submitted to the Center for Economic Studies of the Census Bureau.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Qin, H., E. Prentice*, and K. Freeman*. 2018. Analyzing partially correlated longitudinal data in community survey research. Society & Natural Resources 31(1): 142149.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Ulrich-Schad, J. D. and H. Qin. 2018. Culture clash? Predictors of views on amenity-led development and community involvement in rural recreation counties. Rural Sociology 83(1): 81108.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Qin, H., E. Bent*, C. Brock, Y. Dguidegue*, E. Achuff*, M. Hatcher*, and O. Ojewola*. 2018. Fifteen years after the Bellingham ISSRM: An empirical evaluation of Frederick Buttels differentiating criteria for environmental and resource sociology. Rural Sociology 83(1): 623.