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W2001: Population Dynamics and Change: Aging, Ethnicity and Land Use Change in Rural Communities

Annual/Termination Reports (SAES-422): [11/21/2008] [10/13/2009] [12/18/2010] [08/30/2011] [02/12/2013]

Date of Annual Report: 11/21/2008

Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 09/19/08 to 09/20/08
  • Period the Report Covers: 10/2007 to 09/2008

    • Participants:
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:

    URL: Copy of minutes
    Accomplishments:
    In its first year, W2001 members undertook collaborative research and published extensively in line with the committee's goal to advance understanding of three critical issues: the aging of the rural population, economic vulnerability, and the causes and consequences of land-use change. Publications included a book, Rural Retirement Migration, co-authored by David Brown and Nina Glasgow (with contributions from Laszlo Kulcsar) and roughly 50 refereed journal articles. Examples of on-going collaborative research include in-depth analyses of retirement destinations, impacts of baby boom migration on rural areas, the effects of aging on tax revenues, return migration to economically vulnerable communities, poverty in the Texas Borderland and the lower Mississippi Delta, household valuation of open space, social interaction and environmental knowledge in exurban settings, and the implications of demographic change for resource management.

    During its first annual meeting, the committee addressed the major concern raised during the review process, the need to fully articulate research goals for the proposed work on land-use change. In fact, it became clear that land-use change was emerging as a central theme for developing linkages among the three research areas. The committee discussed a research agenda focused on the demographic forces affecting land use change, and how these effects are mediated by a range of socioeconomic factors (including aging, race/ethnicity, and vulnerability) at different scales. The committee recognized the critical importance of geographic scale (whether questions are posed at the local, state, regional, or national level) in bringing demographic perspectives to bear on land-use research. The group committed to completing an overview article by next year's meeting, coordinated by Peter Nelson and Chris Lepczyk. They will solicit contributions from members and aim to publish results as a conceptual article, beginning with the question: what are the demographic factors connected to land-use change? Results will form the basis of a presentation and discussion at next year's meeting.

    Also at the annual meeting, plans were solidified for collaborative work on rural aging and the publication of a book to disseminate committee findings. Nina Glasgow and Eddy Berry agreed to serve as co-editors, and a timeline was developed to meet an expected publication date in the fourth year of the project. The book will be organized around two themes: 1) What is different about rural aging, compared with the urban context? 2) How does aging contribute to place-making? Specific research issues to be addressed include: work patterns; retirement pensions; taxation; healthcare; aging of the baby boom; formal and informal caregiving; housing; transportation; land-use patterns; volunteerism; and the changing roles of the eldery in rural communities.

    During it first year, committee members engaged in a number of significant outreach and research dissemination efforts, including numerous presentations at international conferences and participation in organized sessions at the annual meetings of the Rural Sociological Society, the Population Association of America, the Association of American Geographers, and several other groups. Briefings were made to policymakers and stakeholder groups, including the National Academies of Science; Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; American Bar Association; AARP; International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium; Rotary International; the New York Association of Counties; USDA's Agricultural Outlook Forum; Department of Labor's Annual Equal Opportunity Professional Development Forum; the Missouri House of Representatives; Senator Clair McCaskill; the Child Obesity Summit; New Hampshire Governor's Task Force to Retain Young Adults; New Hampshire Agricultural Extension annual meeting; Washington State Extension County Directors Annual Meeting; the annual Land, Water, and Fire Conference; Nebraska-Kansas Cooperative Extension Retreat; and Wisconsin Water Basin Educators.

    Impact Statements:
    1. W1001 is just entering its second year and has no impact statements developed at this time.
    Last Modified: 21-Nov-2008

    Date of Annual Report: 10/13/2009

    Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 09/11/09 to 09/12/09
  • Period the Report Covers: 10/2008 to 09/2009

    • Participants:
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:

    URL: Copy of minutes
    Accomplishments:
    During the second annual meeting, Nina Glasgow and Eddy Berry reported on progress toward the publication of the committees collaborative research on the causes and consequences of rural aging. An overall framework has been established, a detailed outline written, priority issues identified, and chapter assignments made. Members stressed the importance of developing common themeshow aging contributes to place-makingand common approaches to analyzing the data, such as emphasizing urban-rural differences. Efforts will be made to demonstrate the effects of the current recession and housing crisis on the well being of the rural elderly, despite limited data. The committee discussed ways to highlight policy ramifications, including ending the book with a summary policy chapter authored by Marlene Lee.

    A central theme for developing linkages among the committees three research areas is emerging: the demographic forces affecting land use change, and how these effects are mediated by a range of socioeconomic factors (including aging, race/ethnicity, and vulnerability) at different scales. Peter Nelson, Matt Foulkes and Chris Lepczyk began work showing the links between population size and population structure and how this leads to distinct land use outcomes. Potential outputs were discussed at the annual meeting. Changing Ruralities: The Intersection of Aging, Diversity, and Landscapes is the working title for a planned mini-conference (tentative date is January 2011) to bring together research findings and plan policy-relevant outputs.

    During it second year, committee members published roughly two dozen refereed journal articles and an equal number of policy briefs or similar outreach articles (see attached publications list). Findings were presented at international conferences and in organized sessions at the annual meetings of the Rural Sociological Society, the Population Association of America, the Association of American Geographers, and several other professional groups.

    An extensive number of outreach and research dissemination efforts were undertaken, including participation in:

    1. discussions of strategies to increase Latino/a participation in outreach programming in Washington State;

    2. town hall meetings on race, ethnicity and migration in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas

    3. a forum on livable communities sponsored by the Congressional Quarterly and AARP, including a presentation of results at the National Press Club in DC

    4. debates on the sustainability of biofuels production and processing in the Central Plains

    5. weekly meetings of the National Economics Councils Committee on the Presidents National Broadband Strategy

    Briefings were made to a wide range of policymakers and stakeholder groups, including the White House Domestic Policy Staff; USDA Rural Development Administrators; the U.S. Census Bureau; the USDA Forest Service; the annual meeting of State Rural Development Directors; several State and National Extension Professional Groups; and several State executive and legislative task forces, advisory councils and commissions.

    Impact Statements:
    1. W1001 is entering its third year and has no impact statements developed at this time. The committees work to date has included extensive planning of outreach efforts, including a policy conference in Washington, DC in the projects final year.
    Last Modified: 07-Nov-2009

    Date of Annual Report: 12/18/2010

    Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 09/17/10 to 09/18/10
  • Period the Report Covers: 10/2009 to 09/2010

    • Participants:
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:

    URL: Copy of minutes
    Accomplishments:
    Accomplishments: During the third annual meeting, the committee held a mini-conference, titled Changing Ruralities: The Intersection of Aging, Diversity, and Landscapes to bring together research findings and plan policy-relevant outputs. The papers touched upon several themes for developing linkages among the committees three research areas. Significant progress was made on the publication of the committees collaborative research on the causes and consequences of rural aging (see attached minutes). The book will be titled Rural Aging in 21st Century America, to be published by Springer. During its third year, committee members published 18 refereed journal articles and an equal number of policy briefs or similar outreach articles (see attached publications list). Research findings were presented at international conferences and in sessions at the annual meetings of the Association of Policy Analysis and Management, Ecological Society of America, Rural Sociological Society, the Population Association of America, the Association of American Geographers, the Pacific Northwest Regional Economic Conference, and several other professional groups.

    An extensive number of outreach and research dissemination efforts were undertaken, including presentations to:

    " USDA Rural Development Administrators " The University of Montana Foundation Board of Trustees " The Board of Trustees, University System of New Hampshire " Senior Management Meeting, White Mountain National Forest. " Rural Learning Network of Central and Western New York. " NY Rural Schools Association " OECD Rural Development Conference " Washington State Disabilities Council " Cambio De Colores 9th Annual Conference " North Dakota Legislative Industry

    Members also served as consultants to, or made briefings to, the White House Domestic Policy Staff; the U.S. Census Bureau; the USDA Forest Service; State Rural Development Directors; and a number of advisory councils and county commissions.

    For her on-going research and outreach, committee member Nina Glasgow received the Cornell University Community and Regional Development Institutes 2010 David J. Allee and Paul R. Eberts Community and Economic Vitality Award.

    Impact Statements:
    1. W1001 is entering its fourth year and has no impact statements developed at this time. The committees work to date has included extensive planning of outreach efforts, including a policy conference in Washington, DC in the projects final year.
    Last Modified: 19-Dec-2010

    Date of Annual Report: 08/30/2011

    Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 07/26/11 to 07/27/11
  • Period the Report Covers: 10/2010 to 09/2011

    • Participants:
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:

    URL: Copy of minutes
    Accomplishments:
    During its fourth year, committee members published 22 refereed journal articles and an equal number of policy briefs and outreach articles related to the committee's objectives (see attached publications list). This output represents the committee's extensive on-going, inter-disciplinary research, including several collaborative efforts that have received external funding. In addition to the publications, members made over 60 presentations at international conferences and in sessions at the annual meetings of the Community Development Society, the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management, the Regional Studies Association, the Ecological Society of America, the Rural Sociological Society, the Population Association of America, the Gerontological Society of America, the Association of American Geographers, and several other professional groups. Significant progress was made on the publication of the committee's collaborative research on the causes and consequences of rural aging (in a book titled Rural Aging in 21st Century America) and on the International Handbook on Rural Demography (see attached minutes). The former will be published by Springer in early 2012 and the latter by Springer in November or December of 2011.

    At the 4th annual meeting in July, the committee made substantial progress in planning next year's policy-research conference in Washington, DC. The two-day event is being hosted by USDA-ERS and will focus on the causes and impacts of rural aging, with race/ethnicity as a major component. It is designed to share the committee's major research findings on rural aging and to receive feedback from rural policy experts representing USDA and several other federal agencies with significant rural policy agendas.

    An extensive number of outreach and research dissemination efforts were undertaken, including presentations to the White House Council of Economic Advisors, USDA Rural Development Administrators, USDA-NIFA, USDA Rural Development State Directors Meeting, HUD/EPA/DOT's Partnership for Sustainable Communities, the National Academies of Science Geographical Sciences Committee, the ERS-USDA 50th Anniversary Conference, the New York State of Upstate Conference, the Rural Assembly, the New Hampshire Sustainable Research Collaboratory, The New Hampshire Transportation and Land Use Roundtable, the Kansas Rural Electric Cooperatives Meeting, the ACS Data Users Workshop at the U.S. Census Bureau, the North Dakota Planning Conference, and several others.

    Impact Statements:
    1. W2001 has not developed its impact statements at this time. The primary research impacts will be generated from the committee‘s two forthcoming books, in addition to the impacts from the committee‘s extensive publication record. As detailed above, the committee‘s work to date has included major outreach efforts at the federal, state, and local levels, which will include the conference with rural policy experts in Washington, DC in the project‘s final year.
    Last Modified: 15-Dec-2011

    Date of Annual Report: 02/12/2013

    Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 09/13/12 to 09/14/12
  • Period the Report Covers: 10/2007 to 09/2012

    • Participants:
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:

    URL: Copy of minutes
    Accomplishments:
    In line with project milestones, members spent the final year completing joint research, publishing books and peer-reviewed articles, and engaging in outreach to policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels. The group fulfilled objective one by completing Rural Aging in the 21st Century, published by Springer as part of their Population Studies series. For this book, W2001 members collaborated on a coordinated series of research studies focused on sociological, demographic and geographic aspects of aging in rural areas of the United States. Aging is perhaps the most important demographic trend of the early 21st century and is more rapid in rural than urban areas. The book provides evidence-based, policy-relevant information and analysis, it improves understanding of what makes the experience of rural aging different from aging in urban areas, and it lays out both the opportunities and challenges that rural places are experiencing.

    The book was edited by two W2001 members, Nina Glasgow and Eddy Berry, and members co-wrote 16 of 19 chapters. Researchers examined a comprehensive range of topics, including: 1) the diversity in rural aging among Latino, African, Asian, and Indian Americans compared to non-Hispanic whites; 2) impacts of internal migration and immigration on the experience of aging in rural places; 3) the aging of the baby boom generation and its impact on economic and community structures; 4) places with relatively old age structures resulting from in-migration of older people versus aging in place and natural decrease; 5) intergenerational ties and their effect on return migration to rural communities; 6) entrepreneurship among older in-migrants; and 7) healthcare issues, among many other topics. It is too early to gauge impacts at this stage, but the topics were chosen with a policy audience in mind and the chapters written to maximize stakeholder engagement. Several committee members have made presentations to policy audiences based on their rural aging research.

    In its final year, the committees other major collaborative effort was also published by Springer. The International Handbook on Rural Demography uses a comparative perspective to show how the rural population remains a vital segment of society living in proximity to much-needed developmental and amenity resources. The book includes several chapters that contribute to fulfilling all three W2001 objectives. By combining the committees chapters on U.S. rural demography with the latest research on international trends, the handbook helps U.S. policy makers understand how demographic dynamics such as aging or growing income inequality depend on economic, social and environmental characteristics of rural areas.

    Two committee members, Laszlo Kulcsar and Katherine Curtis, edited the book and other members contributed 11 of 25 chapters. Research topics with direct impacts on better understanding U.S. rural conditions include: 1) rural aging in international context; 2) perspectives on rural labor markets; 3) rural race and ethnicity; 4) determinants of rural poverty; and 5) integrating ecology and demography to understand the interrelationship between environmental issues and rural populations.

    In addition to these two books, committee members published 21 peer-reviewed articles in various outlets that fulfilled project objectives. Over 90 objective-related articles had already been published in the previous 4 years, many including multiple authors from the committee. Participants continued making numerous research presentations at professional associations and to public policy audiences at the federal, state, and local levels. Core topics for objective one included retirement migration, natural decrease and aging-in-place, linking baby-boomer and Hispanic migration to rural areas, and the impact of non-earnings income on retiree in-migration areas. Research focused on objective two included studies of immigration and its impact on rural well-being, migration and its impact on poverty concentration, family change and poverty, and employment hardships among older workers. Objective three research focused on demand for open space and urban sprawl, estimating effects of urban growth on land development, the wildland-urban interface, and housing growth as an agent of landscape change.

    Based on these and related research findings, W-2001 members published a large number of policy briefs, fact sheets, and online material that significantly broadened the outreach and impact of their collaborative research. The committee helped shape the rural population and migration research agenda of the Economic Research Service, including major reports on baby-boom migration to rural areas and high-outmigration counties. ERS addressed W2001 objectives in their issue briefs (Rural America at a Glance) and summary articles published in Amber Waves. Other policy briefs published by W2001 members had an impact on rural development discussions in North Dakota, Louisiana, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, New York, and Washington.

    As part of its final meeting in September 2012, W2001 organized an all-day policy-research workshop in Washington, DC. The primary purpose was to meet with federal policy-makers and other rural specialists from DC-based groups to help form the research agenda for W3001, a follow-up project that will focus on The Great Recession, Its Aftermath, and Patterns of Rural and Small Town Demographic Change. Research findings from the W2001 collaborations were included in several of the presentations made by committee members and had a direct impact on the agenda-setting discussions that followed each presentation.

    Impact Statements:
    1. The demographic future and economic well-being of nonmetropolitan America is increasingly being shaped by population aging, which is occurring more rapidly in rural areas. Nonmetro areas have a disproportionate concentration of older people15 percent of its population is 65 years or older compared with 12 percent in metro areas.
    2. Rapid rural aging relates to two contrasting migration flows into and out of rural America. In heavily agricultural, heartland counties, high elderly concentrations result from decades of chronic out-migration among young adults and aging-in-place. Rapid aging is also occurring through in-migration of retirees to high-amenity destinations. These two types of counties have similar concentrations of older populations but are usually located in different parts of the country and have very different socioeconomic characteristics and very different policy needs.
    3. Rural older peoples lower socioeconomic status relates to the more limited educational and occupational opportunities in rural areas. Lower health status reflects, in part, lower health care accessibility.
    4. Reforms to Social Security and Medicare are on the federal agenda, thus it is important for policy-makers to understand how potential impacts of program changes will be affected by rural-urban differences in aging processes. Within rural areas, impacts will vary by regional context, by race/ethnicity, and across different cultural environments.
    5. Public agencies have significant roles to play to encourage a high quality of life for older adults. Access to services, physical infrastructure, and transportation are critical issues for older populations in rural areas.
    6. A rapidly-growing, heavily Latino immigrant workforce played an increasingly important economic and social role amid a retirement-age non-minority population during the 2000s. Numerous public policy implications stem from differences in aging between Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites.
    7. Persistent poverty remains both spatially clustered and concentrated among rural minority populations.
    8. Economic prosperity in the 1990s increased the demand for rural land, particularly in the Intermountain West, which witnessed some of the most dramatic population increases in the United States. In terms of valuation of residential choices, the value of proximity to greenways, parks, and water bodies increased during this period, while the value of lot size and proximity to golf courses fell.
    9. Consumers willingness to pay for environmental landscape attributes decreased during the 2008 recession compared to the 20002006 real estate boom. However, the decline was probably due to a temporary deterioration in economic conditions, thus the amenity values will probably rebound with economic recovery.
    10. W2001 was at the forefront of knowledge development needed to understand the linkages between population change and rural society. An incomplete collection of Google Scholar indices reports for committee members (about 2/3s provided data from Google Scholar) listed 7764 citations since 2007. In addition to publications in leading journals, presentations were made at conferences, including the annual meetings of the Rural Sociological Society, the Population Association of America, the Association of American Geographers, the Association of Policy Analysis and Management, the Ecological Society of America, the Pacific Northwest Regional Economic Conference, and several other professional groups.
    11. The project had an impact on the U.S. rural development agenda by informing stakeholders, increasing access to data, and shaping population research to meet the needs of stakeholders. Results from W2001 research were disseminated widely among members of Congress, USDA rural development program managers, state legislatures, major non-governmental organizations, and regional, state, and local stakeholder groups.
    12. Much work was done to expand the level of outreach to include groups with particular interests in rural aging, diversity, and land use. Briefings were made to the National Academies of Science; the White House Domestic Policy Staff; USDA Rural Development administrators; the U.S. Census Bureau; the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; American Bar Association; AARP; International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium; Rotary International; USDAs Agricultural Outlook Forum; Department of Labors Annual Equal Opportunity Professional Development Forum; a forum on livable communities sponsored by the Congressional Quarterly and AARP, including a presentation of results at the National Press Club in DC; and dozens of State and local stakeholder groups. Committee outreach in informing the policy-making community was particularly strong in, but not limited to, the States of Louisiana, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.
    Last Modified: 12-Feb-2013
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