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Natural Resource Dependence and Rural Poverty: Some Reflections and a Research Agenda

Natural Resource Dependence and Rural Poverty: Some Reflections and a Research Agenda. Bruce Weber RUPRI Rural Poverty Research Center Oregon State University Poverty Research in the Rural West Logan UT April 7-8, 2005. Some Stylized Facts about Poverty and Place: The Rural Version.

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Natural Resource Dependence and Rural Poverty: Some Reflections and a Research Agenda

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  1. Natural Resource Dependence and Rural Poverty: Some Reflections and a Research Agenda Bruce Weber RUPRI Rural Poverty Research Center Oregon State University Poverty Research in the Rural West Logan UT April 7-8, 2005

  2. Some Stylized Facts about Poverty and Place: The Rural Version • Poverty rates have historically been higher in nonmetropolitan counties • Poverty rates are highest in the most remote rural counties

  3. Poverty rates by residence, 1959 - 2001

  4. Poverty Rates Along the Rural Urban Continuum

  5. Persistent Poverty Counties • There were 382 Persistent Poverty Counties in 2000. (These counties poverty rates of 20% or higher in each decennial census between 1960 and 2000) • Persistent Poverty Counties are: • Geographically concentrated • Overwhelmingly rural (95 percent)

  6. Persistent Poverty CountiesCounties with poverty rates >20 % in 1959, 1969, 1979, 1989, 1999

  7. Percent of Counties in each Urban Influence Code in Persistent Poverty

  8. High Poverty Census Tracts • Poverty rates of 30% or more in 1990 • 7,030 tracts – 11.7 percent of all tracts • Geographically dispersed • ERS Rural-Urban Commuting Area Codes • High poverty most prevalent in core area tracts and remote rural areas

  9. High Poverty Census Tracts, 1990

  10. Percent of Tracts in each RUCA Code in High Poverty

  11. Poverty Rates by RUCA Code

  12. What do we need to know? • What are the individual processes & community/ neighborhood processes & institutional mechanisms that generate and maintain poverty? • What community strategies have been most successful in reducing poverty, and how does this vary across community types? • How does policy interact with these community-level processes to affect poverty?

  13. New Rural Poverty Research Initiatives • Long-term multi-method studies in rural places of low-income family, social-safety-net and work dynamics: a “multi-rural-community study of poverty and inequality” • Policy experiments in diverse rural places

  14. Work, Migration and Community Prosperity in Forest-Dependent Towns • A multi-method project to examine migration, economic opportunity, and community civic capacity in historically forest-dependent communities in the Pacific Northwest and the Northeastern United States. • Analyze the ways in which household decisions feed back to affect rural communities in their civic culture, their capacity for economic development, and their resiliency.

  15. Important Questions • What factors affect the migration decisions of those living in forest-dependent regions of the Pacific Northwest and Northeast? • What individual, family and community characteristics influence decisions or plans regarding work and migration?

  16. Important Questions • How do work and migration decisions of rural people affect their engagement in community affairs, community prosperity and the capacity to prosper? • What policies, programs, and practices have been tried in each region to influence work and migration decisions? To what extent is their impact visible in community or regional work and migration outcomes? How is their impact viewed by community residents and regional leaders?

  17. Approach • An interdisciplinary, multi-method study of the dynamics of migration in forest-dependent communities, with analysis of who stays, who leaves, and who returns over time; and an examination of how these patterns impact civic capacity and local development outcomes • Analysis at community, individual, and family levels

  18. Selecting Communities • Four communities - one thriving and one struggling county in each region, the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast • Focus on historically forest-dependent counties – those in which at least 15% of labor and proprietor incomes in 1984 were earned in the forestry and wood products sectors.

  19. Forest-dependent Communities

  20. Research Components • Three main research components and a fourth component which synthesizes the findings. • Allows each component to inform and complement the others.

  21. Econometric Analysis • Examines patterns of migration between forest-dependent regions and other parts of the country. • Data from the US Census Bureau Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) that provides detailed demographic and socioeconomic information on households and individuals.

  22. Econometric Analysis • An emphasis is placed on how migration is influenced by anticipated labor market outcomes, the cost of migration, and sociodemographic characteristics. • Employment Choice Model: Hunt and Mueller (2004) using wage equations for labor markets within and outside forest-dependent areas.

  23. Sociometric Analysis • Analyzes survey data from random samples of about some 1600 households in the four selected communities. • Goals: • Attain basic descriptive information • Explore empirical typologies of households and places • Model what combinations of factors influence migration decisions and levels of civic engagement • Results should help to understand how individual migration decisions do or could respond to public policies and programs.

  24. Sociometric Analysis Survey • The survey seeks information about: • Demographics of current region residents • Residence and migration • Civic Engagement and ties • Family Economics • Perceived Impacts of social and economic policies, programs, and practices

  25. Ethnographic Research • Two representative and similar communities from both regions will be selected for in-depth analysis • Two phases of study: • A comprehensive community profile developed through a combination of secondary data • An intensive intergenerational study of ten families in each site conducted through interviews

  26. Ethnographic Analysis • Community profiles provides local contextual information on the economic and social history of place, as well as characterize local civic capacity over time. • Family interviews explore the push and pull factors affecting work and location decisions at the individual, family, and community level, and examine the nature of the stayers’, leavers’, and newcomers’ civic engagement, social ties, and commitment to community.

  27. Synthesis • Through periodic interactions of members of the interdisciplinary group of researchers, the findings will be synthesized into a work that provides new insights about migration, civic engagement, and community prosperity.

  28. Rural Poverty Research Center • A community of policymakers, practitioners and researchers seeking to understand how policy and practice can reduce poverty across the rural-urban continuum. • Co-located in • RUPRI in the Truman School of Public Affairs, University of Missouri • The Department of Agricultural Resource and Economics at Oregon State University • Collaboration with the Regional Rural Development Centers

  29. RPRC Research • RPRC projects: 2004-05 • “Neighborhood Effects” in Rural Communities: Concentrated Poverty and Employment Outcomes • What Reduces Poverty in Persistently Poor Rural Areas? • Sentinel Communities: Tracking and Explaining Community Capacity in Rural Places • Material Hardship in Rural and Urban Places • Small Grants Program 2004-05

  30. Research Conferences • National Agenda Setting Conference : The Importance of Place in Poverty Research and Policy March 3-4, 2004 in Washington DC • North Central Regional Research Conference: Culture, Governance and Rural Poverty (w/NCRCRD) May 25-27, 2004 Chicago • Southern Regional Research Conference: In the Shadows of Poverty (w/ SRDC) July 21-23, 2004 Memphis • Western Regional Research Conference: April 7-8, 2005 • Northeastern Regional Research Conference: Global Forces and Individual Coping StrategiesMay 4-5, 2005

  31. RPRC Mentoring • Postdoctoral Research Fellowships • Rural Poverty Dissertation Fellowships • Undergraduate Leadership Program • Professional Development Travel Fund

  32. RPRC Dissemination • Quarterly Newsletter: Perspectives on Poverty, Policy and Place • Working Paper Series • Research Briefs • RPRC UPDATE (quarterly email) • RPRC website

  33. Rural Policy Research Institute Rural Poverty Research Center www.rprconline.org Core funding for RPRC is provided by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services RUPRI Rural Poverty Research Center is one of three Area Poverty Research Centers funded by ASPE/HHS

  34. http://www.rprconline.org

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