Economic Restructuring and Family Well-Being in Rural America by Kristin E Smith

Economic Restructuring and Family Well-Being in Rural America by Kristin E Smith

A compilation of policy-relevant research by a multidisciplinary group of scholars on the state of families in rural America in the twenty-first century. Examines the impact of economic restructuring on rural Americans and provides policy recommendations for addressing the challenges they face.

“This is a timely and important book on a very underresearched and misunderstood topicAs numerous others point out, ‘rural’ America is not just farms and rural areas, and its problems are not all that different in some fundamental ways from urban ones. This book should be required reading for anyone interested in better understanding how global economic changes have affected not only jobs but, crucially, the people who hold them, the places they live, the people they live with. The book will be of interest to academics and nonacademics alike. Policy makers would be particularly well advised to learn from its rich empirical analysis and thoughtful discussion.”

—William W. Falk, University of Maryland

“This volume is a benchmark on responses to economic change in the United States. The editors have done a masterful job in showcasing a breadth of scholarship, reflected collectively in the contributing authors’ interdisciplinary approaches, attention to an array of family, demographic, and economic outcomes, and concern with theoretical as well as policy-related issues. The chapters combine rigorous analysis and detailed implications for public policy in a lucid manner that will be accessible to a variety of audiences. In confronting and comparing rural responses with those documented in urban settings, the chapters provide an innovative corrective to conventional work in sociology, family studies, demography, economics, and policy studies.”

—Linda Lobao, The Ohio State University

“While the troubles facing the banking and housing sectors have served as the focal points of our nation’s economic woes, it’s around the kitchen tables of many rural American families where the pain and strain have been profoundly felt. Regrettably, efforts to examine the multifaceted consequences of economic restructuring on family well-being have been virtually absent—until now. Assembling a veritable ‘who’s who’ among social and behavioral scientists, Smith and Tickamyer have guided the development of an impressive research volume that offers important insights into the array of family-related challenges playing in rural America today as a product of national and global economic forces. The value-added aspect of this volume is the attention that it devotes to policy—to the mix of investments and refinements that policy makers must pursue in order to promote the stability and the long-term vitality of families in rural America.”

—Lionel J. “Bo” Beaulieu, Southern Rural Development Center, Mississippi State University

Kristin E. Smith is a family demographer at the Carsey Institute and Research Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire.

Ann R. Tickamyer is Professor and Head, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780271048628
ISBN 10	027104862X
Title	Economic Restructuring and Family Well-Being in Rural America
Author	Kristin E Smith
Series	Rural Studies
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Pennsylvania State University Press
Year published	2014-02-15
Number of pages	416
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.