Rural areas in the United States

Westminster, Vermont
A rural country road in Marshall County, Indiana

Approximately 97% of United States' land area belongs to rural counties, and 60 million people (roughly 19.3% of the population) reside in these areas.[1]

Population, demographic patterns, and economy

About 13.4 million children under the age of 18 lived in rural areas of the nation.[1]

Children in rural areas had lower rates of poverty than those in urban areas (18.9 percent compared with 22.3 percent), but more of them were uninsured (7.3 percent compared with 6.3 percent). A higher percentage of "own children" in rural areas lived in married-couple households (76.3 percent compared with 67.4 percent). ("Own children" includes never-married biological, step and adopted children of the couple).[1]

Compared with households in urban areas, rural households had lower median household income ($52,386 compared with $54,296), lower median home values ($151,300 compared with $190,900), and lower monthly housing costs for households paying a mortgage ($1,271 compared with $1,561). A higher percentage owned their housing units “free and clear,” with no mortgage or loan (44.0 percent compared with 32.3 percent).[1]

States with the highest median household incomes in rural areas were Connecticut ($93,382) and New Jersey ($92,972) (not statistically different from each other). The state with the lowest rural median household income was Mississippi ($40,200). Among rural areas, poverty rates varied from a low in Connecticut (4.6 percent) to a high in New Mexico (21.9 percent).[1]

As of 2016, about 7 percent of homeless people in the United States live in rural areas, although some believe that this is an underestimate.[2]

History

Rural America was the center of the Populist movement of the United States in the 1890s. Since the 1930s, rural America has largely been a stronghold for the Republican Party.

Health

There are significant health disparities between urban and rural areas of the United States. The per capita rate of primary care physicians is lower in rural areas of the country (65 primary care physicians per 100,000 rural Americans, compared to 105 primary care physicians for urban and suburban Americans).[3] Rural Americans are also more likely than other Americans to suffer from chronic health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.[3]

A study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics in 2015 analyzed data on U.S. youth suicide rates from 1996 to 2010. It found that the rates of suicides for rural Americans age 10 to 24 was almost double the rate among their urban counterparts. This was attributed to social isolation, greater availability of guns, and difficulty accessing healthcare.[4]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "New Census Data Show Differences Between Urban and Rural Populations". American Community Survey, 2011–15. Bureau of the Census. December 8, 2016.
  2. ↑ Miles Bryan, In Rural America, Homeless Population May Be Bigger Than You Think, NPR All Things Considered (February 18, 2016).
  3. 1 2 Molly O'Toole, Healthcare access lagging in rural U.S.: report, Reuters (July 27, 2011).
  4. ↑ Julie Beck, The Growing Risk of Suicide in Rural America, The Atlantic (March 10, 2015).

Further reading

  • Cynthia M. Duncan, Worlds Apart: Poverty and Politics in Rural America (2d ed.: Yale University Press, 2014).
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