Poverty and Opportunity Structure in Rural America

Rural areas have a disproportionate share of the US poverty population. Like poor urban communities, the persistence and severity of poverty in rural America can be linked to a limited opportunity structure which is the outcome of both past social and economic development policies and current economic transformation. Many rural communities lack stable employment, opportunities for mobility, investment in the community, and diversity in the economy and other social institutions. They are increasingly socially and spatially isolated and particularly vulnerable to adverse effects from structural economic change. This study reviews research on rural poverty and traces its relationship to its historical roots in social, political, and economic inequality and to current economic restructuring. Relevant sources of information on rural poverty include classic community and regional analyses, studies of rural-urban migration, regional development and underdevelopment, economic restructuring, and labor market analysis.

[1]  Herbert J. Gans,et al.  The Urban Villagers , 1962 .

[2]  Carol B. Stack.  All Our Kin , 1974 .

[3]  A. Tickamyer,et al.  Poverty research and policy for rural America , 1988 .

[4]  Joachim Singelmann,et al.  From Agriculture to Services: The Transformation of Industrial Employment.By Joachim Singelmann, Beverly Hills: Sage, 1978. 176 pp. Cloth, $18.00; paper, $8.95 , 1981 .

[5]  Patricia D. Beaver.  Rural Community in the Appalachian South , 1986 .

[6]  Joseph F. Wilson.  America's Struggle against Poverty 1900-1980 , 1982, American Political Science Review.

[7]  Barry Bluestone,et al.  The Great U-turn: Corporate Restructuring And The Polarizing Of America , 1990 .

[8]  L. Wirth,et al.  Urbanism as a Way of Life , 1938, American Journal of Sociology.

[9]  Dwight B. Billings.  Culture and Poverty in Appalachia: A Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Analysis , 1974 .

[10]  J. J. Mangalam,et al.  Mountain families in transition : a case study of Appalachian migration , 1973 .

[11]  Stephen Steinberg,et al.  The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America , 1982 .

[12]  T. Williams,et al.  Growing up Poor , 1985 .

[13]  F. R. Marshall,et al.  Cooperatives and Rural Poverty in the South , 1971 .

[14]  Wilbur Richard Thompson,et al.  A preface to urban economics , 1965 .

[15]  Barry Bluestone,et al.  The deindustrialization of America : plant closings, community abandonment, and the dismantling of basic industry , 1984 .

[16]  P. J. Ross,et al.  Two Types of Rural Poor Need Different Kinds of Help. , 1987 .

[17]  W. Whyte.  Street corner society : the social structure of an Italian slum , 1946 .

[18]  Charles M. Tolbert,et al.  Labor Market Areas for the United States. , 1987 .

[19]  L. Thurow,et al.  A surge in inequality. , 1987, Scientific American.

[20]  L. Long.  Poverty Status and Receipt of Welfare Among Migrants and Nonmigrants in Large Cities. , 1974 .

[21]  J. Morgan,et al.  Years of Poverty, Years of Plenty: The Changing Economic Fortunes of American Workers and Families. , 1987 .

[22]  J. Riis.  How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York , 1903 .

[23]  A. Tickamyer,et al.  Gender and Poverty in Central Appalachia. , 1988 .

[24]  Jonathan Gershuny,et al.  The informal economy , 1979 .

[25]  R. Chambers,et al.  Family and social network , 1964 .

[26]  R. Hall,et al.  Holding on to the land and the Lord : kinship, ritual, land tenure, and social policy in the rural South , 1983 .

[27]  M. Harrington.  The Other America , 1962 .

[28]  D. Lichter.  Race, Employment Hardship, and Inequality in the American Nonmetropolitan South , 1989 .

[29]  T. Lyson,et al.  Two Sides to the Sunbelt: The Growing Divergence between the Rural and Urban South. , 1990 .

[30]  Ann Markusen,et al.  Profit cycles, oligopoly, and regional development , 1985 .

[31]  S. Levitan,et al.  Working but Poor: America's Contradiction , 1987, American Political Science Review.

[32]  Burleigh B. Gardner,et al.  Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class , 1942 .

[33]  C. Ellis.  Fisher Folk: Two Communities on Chesapeake Bay , 1986 .

[34]  Stanley Lieberson,et al.  A Reconsideration of the Income Differences Found Between Migrants and Northern-Born Blacks , 1978, American Journal of Sociology.

[35]  L. Reif.  Farm Structure, Industry Structure, and Socioeconomic Conditions in the United States. , 1987 .

[36]  R. Rapoport,et al.  People of cove and woodlot;: Communities from the viewpoint of social psychiatry , 1960 .

[37]  I. Shapiro.  Laboring for Less: Working but Poor in Rural America. , 1989 .

[38]  James Agee,et al.  Let Us Now Praise Famous Men , 1941 .

[39]  E. R. Stoddard,et al.  Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986. , 1987 .

[40]  R. Bremner,et al.  From the Depths , 1957 .

[41]  W. Diebold,et al.  The Second Industrial Divide , 1985 .

[42]  G. Summers,et al.  Economic Development and Community Social Change , 1984 .

[43]  J. Fitchen.  Poverty in Rural America: A Case Study , 1981 .

[44]  H. Gans.  Urbanism and Suburbanism as Ways of Life , 1968 .

[45]  James C. Cobb,et al.  Industrialization and Southern Society 1877-1984 , 1984 .

[46]  Donald Tomaskovic-Devey.  Labor Markets, Industrial Structure, and Poverty: A Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Example. , 1987 .

[47]  L. Long,et al.  Migration and Income Differences Between Black and White Men in the North , 1975, American Journal of Sociology.

[48]  N. Folbre.  The Pauperization of Motherhood: Patriarchy and Public Policy in the United States , 1984 .

[49]  R. Pahl.  Readings in urban sociology , 1969 .

[50]  Jess Gilbert,et al.  Rural Theory: The Grounding of Rural Sociology. , 1982 .

[51]  A Piece of the Pie: Blacks and White Immigrants Since 1880 , 1981 .

[52]  J. J. Mangalam,et al.  Mountain Families in Transition: A Case Study of Appalachian Migration. , 1972 .

[53]  R. Ball.  A poverty case: the analgesic subculture of the Southern Appalachians. , 1968, American sociological review.

[54]  M. J. Bane,et al.  Slipping into and Out of Poverty: the Dynamics of Spells , 1983 .

[55]  J. Mandle.  The Roots of Black Poverty: The Southern Plantation Economy After the Civil War , 1980 .

[56]  E. Malizia.  Organizing to Overcome Uneven Development: The Case of the U.S. South , 1978 .