RURAL YOUNG ADULTS

1. RURAL YOUNG ADULTS TTA 4/17

2. Rural Young AdultsTrends • In just over 2 decades, more than 700 rural counties lost 10% or more of their population • There are more deaths than births in 50% of rural communities

3. Why? • Rise of • Agribusiness • Just 2%of Americans operate farmes • 42% of Midwestern farmers earn less than 20K a year • Decline of factories • Automation and outsourcing • Sr. workers earned $30 an hour—their children earn 1/3

4. Why? • Decline of unions and blue-collar wages • Employers increased reliance on undocumented workers • Undernvestment in young workers without college degrees

5. Carr and Kefalas • Spent 1.5 years and interviewed young people who attended high school in the late 1980’s and early 1900’s

6. Who are rural youth • Carr and Kefalas group young adults into several categories • Achievers • Stayers • Seekers • Returners

7. Achievers (20%) • A young girl likes her small-town Iowa life and would prefer to stay, but she knows she has to leave to achieve any sort of professional potential. Indeed, her parents encourage her to leave. She attends Stanford and completes a grad. Degree in statistics

8. Stayers (40%) • Young women decide to stay and marry and begin families. One says, “I thought that’s just what I had to do. Not that I had to do it, I just—that’s what I wanted to do. It was at a point in my life where I was like, “Let’s get this going.”

9. Seekers (10%) • “These young people are trying to get out. And many do not have the educational aspirations of their classmates. The military is a primary option. “The fact that he ‘did’t have the best grades in the world’ and that heading straight to college would not be in the cards led him to view the Navy as ‘the best thing,’ if only because it ‘saved’ him from “getting trapped.”

10. Returners (30%) • One young couple, high school sweethearts, return after earning professional degrees and finding opportunities to put those degrees to work. ‘Probably the biggest motivating factor in returning to the Iowa countryside, Liz said, “was my family I want to be close to my extended family. I chose to stay her because I wanted to raise my children here. I enjoy Iowa.”

11. Role of adults • Played a pivotal part in the town’s decline by • pushing the best and brightest to leave • Underinvesting in those who chose to stay

12. Guidance Counselor • “The best kids go while the ones with the biggest problems stay, and then we have to deal with their kids in the schools in the next generation.” • Teachers under-invest in stayers • View school as an alienating experience • That lack of investment betrays the community • The choices stayers make doom them to downward mobility

13. What can be down to plug the brain drain? • Equalize investment across different groups of young people • Community college and vocational programs • Nursing their interests while in high school through internships and training • Distance learning technology • Embrace immigration • Hispanic boomtowns in Midwest • Entice professionals to come back • Low home prices

14. Other suggestions • Green economy initiatives • Rethink how we produce food in America • Reshaping postsecondary education

15. Why should we care? • It’s where our food comes from • It helps elect our presidents • It sends disproportionate number of young people to fight

16. Broader trends • People have been moving to cities for decades • Employment and wealth are growing • But is America Losing something • Sarah’s uncertain path?

17. Use of MEDIA • Young adults spend more time online than any other age group • most of that time is spent in social network sites • They also spend more time with music • less time to TV and film viewing than adolescents, but still spend an average of 4 hours a day watching TV • 26% of internet users aged 18-29 visit a video