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.

About the Author
Ann Tickamyer is professor of rural sociology at the College of Agricultural Science at the 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 an 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 an 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 of Research on Poverty.

Reviews
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


Awards
Winner of Fred Buttel Outstanding Scholarly Achievement Award (Book), Rural Sociological Society 2018.



Book Information
ISBN 9780231172233
Author Ann Tickamyer
Format Paperback
Page Count 496
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press