New in The Conversation from Tim Slack and @smonnat.bsky.social Shannon Monnat: "6 myths about rural America: How conventional wisdom gets it wrong"
1/
theconversation.com/6-myths-abou...
Want to know why these encouraging but expected trends occurred? Well you can read the full paper here to find out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Answer #2: When using the Supplemental Poverty Rate, we find that rural child poverty rates have fallen, particularly post 2017. Broadly speaking, this progress on poverty is unexpected since rural kids are increasingly living in nonmarital families, which normally have high risks of poverty.
Answer #1: Rural kids are increasingly NOT living in married parent families. Instead they are increasingly living with cohabiting parents, never married parents, and with no parents (kinship care). This shift away from married families has happened at much faster pace for rural than urban kids.
Ever wonder about what’s it like to grow up in rural America? So did we! @shelleydclark.bsky.social and I tackle two basic—but essential—questions in our new Journal of Marriage and Family article, just out today. Who do rural kids live with today? How likely are rural kids to grow up in poverty?
Unexpected Changes in Rural Families: Fewer Married Parents, Lower Child Poverty Matt Brooks Florida State University Oct. 27, 2025 PSC Brown Bag Series 2025 Join us live or on Zoom ISR (Thompson St.) Room 1430 | Mondays at noon
Matt Brooks @ruraldemography.bsky.social points to unexpected changes in rural families that not only affect our understanding of who is poor in rural America but also how to address national child poverty. Join us for the next PSC Brown Bag live or on Zoom! psc.isr.umich.edu/events/zivin...
Wrote this for the conversation about immigrants in Florida, and whether the state is really experiencing an immigration crisis. And if it is, then what do we actually know about immigrants in the state.
Our latest digest shares the work of @ruraldemography.bsky.social, @jtommueller.bsky.social, Brian C. Thiede, and Daniel T. Lichter examining the underappreciated role of diversity in nonmetropolitan areas and identifying patterns underlying recent changes to rural demographics.
A few days late, but just want to say how I love going to PAA!
Taking these things together, one could say that to some extent birth/marriage rates in urban areas are bolstered by rural youth (who have a higher propensity to marry and become parents) moving to cities.
This tendency to marry early exists beyond any sorting based on SES or childhood environments. We think this reflects rural cultural norms.
This is also true regarding first births but to a lesser extent (rural-urban differences go away when you control for one’s own mother’s age at first birth).
We have another paper that looks into this. Selective rural to urban migration is massive for sure, particularly from age 18-34 and those with college degrees. However, we find that those who move out of rural areas remain similar to those stay in that they tend to marry early.
🚨🚨🚨 Hot off the press! Shelley Clark and I wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post that’s out this morning about declining Marriage rates in rural America (and the potentially “misaligned” policy implications that go along with it).
Would love to hear your thoughts!
New Trump admin guidelines prioritize transportation spending and infrastructure for “communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average,” which many are reading as a shorthand for subsidizing white rural communities.
The truth is complicated.
tinyurl.com/DOTpolicy2025
1/
We are now on our fourth day of snows days here. I did some thinking and I think that this might be more snow days than I got in undergrad and grad school combined.
And it might be the same amount I got all through high school (in Minnesota)!
