Rural Poverty in the United States - by Ann Tickamyer & Jennifer Sherman & Jennifer Warlick (Paperback)

About the Book

In a comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis that extends from the Civil War to the present, this book seeks to isolate the underlying causes of persistent rural poverty. It take a hard look at current and past programs to alleviate rural poverty and uses their failures to suggest alternatives that could improve the well-being of rural Americans.

Book Synopsis

America's rural areas have always held a disproportionate share of the nation's poorest populations. Rural Poverty in the United States examines why. What is it about the geography, demography, and history of rural communities that keeps them poor? In a comprehensive analysis that extends from the Civil War to the present, Rural Poverty in the United States looks at access to human and social capital; food security; healthcare and the environment; homelessness; gender roles and relations; racial inequalities; and immigration trends to isolate the underlying causes of persistent rural poverty.

Contributors to this volume incorporate approaches from multiple disciplines, including sociology, economics, demography, race and gender studies, public health, education, criminal justice, social welfare, and other social science fields. They take a hard look at current and past programs to alleviate rural poverty and use their failures to suggest alternatives that could improve the well-being of rural Americans for years to come. These essays work hard to define rural poverty's specific metrics and markers, a critical step for building better policy and practice. Considering gender, race, and immigration, the book appreciates the overlooked structural and institutional dimensions of ongoing rural poverty and its larger social consequences.

Review Quotes

The analysis throughout the book is intersectoral, looking at the implications of gender, race, and ethnicity for access to resources, from land and its products to employment opportunities as structural changes made different kinds of extractionism less lucrative.-- "Contemporary Sociology"

This edited volume presents a comprehensive, multidisciplinary analysis of rural poverty in the US. . . . Highly recommended.-- "Choice"

Rural Poverty in the United States provides the most comprehensive analysis in decades of living conditions among poor people in rural America. It is a superb example of 'actionable social science.'--Tom Rudel, Rutgers University

This book covers the historical development of rural poverty research and policy, brings together the core theoretical literature, and addresses significant substantive issues including food insecurity, race, migration, and housing. The breadth is remarkable. No other volume exists today that draws the literature together so comprehensively and engagingly.--Linda Lobao, The Ohio State University

About the Author

Ann R. Tickamyer is professor of rural sociology in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education in the College of Agricultural Science at Pennsylvania State University. She is the coeditor of Economic Restructuring and Family Well-Being in Rural America (2011) and coauthor of Power, Change, and Gender Relations in Rural Java: A Tale of Two Villages (2012).

Jennifer Sherman is associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Washington State University. She is the author of Those Who Work, Those Who Don't: Poverty, Morality, and Family in Rural America (2009).

Jennifer Warlick is associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Notre Dame and the director of their Poverty Studies Interdisciplinary Minor. She has also been an economist at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and a fellow at the Institute for Research on Poverty.