Overview
Much of the policy and applied research conducted by Carsey Institute researchers examines families and communities in the context of place. With generous early support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Kellogg Foundation, Carsey has developed a strong policy program examining the challenges facing children, youth and families in Rural America. Since 2005 we have published fact sheets, policy and issue briefs, and reports examining how socio-economic and policy issues differ in rural areas, suburban areas and central cities. Our demographers have nationally recognized expertise about conditions and trends in rural America, and our Community and Environment team of researchers are defining how policymakers and practitioners think about the diverse circumstances in rural and urban America.
Publications (PDF)
National
- Rural Areas Risk Being Overlooked in the 2010 Census (O'Hare, 2010, Issue Brief No. 12)
- Low Income and Impoverished Families Pay Disproportionately More for Child Care (Smith, 2010, Policy Brief No. 16)
- Ocean Views: Coastal Environmental Problems as Seen by Downeast Maine Residents (Safford and Hamilton, 2010, New England Policy Brief No. 3)
- Federal Child Nutrition Programs are Important to Rural Households (Wauchope and Shattuck, 2010, Issue Brief No. 11)
- Rural Families with a Child Abuse Report are More Likely Headed by a Single Parent and Endure Economic and Family Stress (Mattingly, 2010, Issue Brief No. 10)
- Students in Rural Schools Have Limited Access to Advanced Mathematics Courses (Graham, 2009, Issue Brief No. 7)
- Increased Reliance on Wives as Breadwinners during the First Year of the Recession (Smith, 2009, Issue Brief No. 9)
- Rural and Urban Children Have Lower Rates of Health Insurance Coverage and are More Often Covered by Public Plans (Mattingly and Stransky, 2009, Issue Brief No. 8)
- Rural America and the South Have the Highest Percent of Veterans with Service-Related Disabilities (Mattingly and Stransky, 2009, Fact Sheet No. 16)
- The Forgotten Fifth: Child Poverty in Rural America (O'Hare, 2009, Report No. 10)
- The New, Longer Road to Adulthood: Schooling, Work, and Idleness among Rural Youth (Snyder, McLaughlin, and Coleman-Jensen, 2009, Report No. 9)
- Rural Children are More Likely to Live in Cohabiting-Couple Households (O'Hare, Manning, Porter, Lyons, 2009, Policy Brief No. 14)
- Rural Workers More Likely to Work Nontraditional Shifts (Saenz, 2009, Issue Brief No. 5)
- Rural Workers Would Benefit from Unemployment Insurance Modernizations (Shattuck, 2009, Policy Brief No. 13)
- Forty-three Percent of Rural Families Can Claim a Larger Credit with EITC Expansion (Mattingly, 2009, Policy Brief No. 12)
- Seventy-eight Percent of Working Rural Families to Receive Full Making Work Pay Tax Credit (Mattingly, 2009, Fact Sheet No. 14)
- Child Tax Credit Expansion Increases Number of Families Eligible for a Refund (Mattingly, 2009, Issue Brief No. 4)
- Grey Gold: Do Older In-Migrants Benefit Rural Communities? (Glasgow and Brown, 2008, Policy Brief No. 10)
- Rural Children Now Less Likely to Live in Married Couple Families (O'Hare and Churilla, 2008, Fact Sheet No. 13)
- Concentrated Rural Poverty and the Geography of Exclusion (Lichter and Parisi, 2008, Policy Brief) (copublished with Rural Realities)
- Measures and Methods: Four Tenets for Rural Economic Development in the New Economy (Brown-Graham and Lambe, 2008, Policy Brief No. 9)
- Religion, Politics, and the Environment in Rural America (Dillon and Henly, 2008, Issue Brief No. 3)
- Children in Central Cities and Rural Communities Experience High Rates of Poverty (Savage, 2008, Fact Sheet No. 12)
- Urban and Rural Children Experience Similar Rates of Low Income and Poverty (Churilla, 2008, Issue Brief No. 2)
- Place Matters: Challenges and Opportunities in Four Rural Americas (Hamilton, Hamilton, Duncan, and Colocousis, 2008, Reports on Rural America, Volume 1, Number 4)
- Rural Youth are More Likely to be Idle (Snyder and McLaughlin, 2008, Fact Sheet No. 11)
- Rural America in the 21st Century (Report to the National Rural Assembly, 2007)
- Rural Americans Continue to Account for Disproportionate High Share of U.S. Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan (O'Hare and Bishop, 2007, Fact Sheet No. 9)
- Rural Children Increasingly Rely on Medicaid and State Child Health Insurance Programs for Medical Care (O'Hare, 2007 Policy Brief No. 6)
- Biofueling Rural Development (Kleinschmit, 2007, Policy Brief No. 5)
- EITC is Vital for Working-Poor Families in Rural America (O'Hare and Kneebone, 2007, Fact Sheet No. 8)
- Employment Rates Higher Among Rural Mothers Than Urban Mothers (Smith, 2007, Fact Sheet No. 7)
- Child Poverty High in Rural America (O'Hare and Savage, 2007, Fact Sheet No. 6)
- Food Stamp and School Lunch Programs Alleviate Food Insecurity in Rural America (Smith and Savage, 2007, Fact Sheet No. 5)
- Rural Workers Would Benefit More Than Urban Workers from an Increase in the Federal Minimum Wage (O'Hare, 2007, Fact Sheet No. 4)
- New Immigrant Settlements in Rural America (Jensen, 2006, Reports on Rural America, Volume 1, Number 3)
- Substance Abuse in Rural and Small Town America (Van Gundy, 2006, Reports on Rural America, Volume 1, Number 2)
- Demographic Trends in Rural and Small Town America (Johnson, 2006, Reports on Rural America, Volume 1, Number 1)
- Subprime and Predatory Lending in Rural America (2006, Policy Brief No. 4)
- Rural Families Choose Home-Based Child Care for Their School-Aged Children (Smith, 2006, Policy Brief No. 3)
- Low-Skill Workers in Rural America Face Permanent Job Loss (Galsmeier and Salant, 2006, Policy Brief No. 2)
- U.S. Rural Soldiers Account for a Disproportionately High Share of Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan (O'Hare and Bishop, 2006, Fact Sheet No. 3)
- Rural America Depends on the Food Stamp Program to Make Ends Meet (Smith and Salant, 2005, Policy Brief No. 1)
- Values and Religion in Rural America (Dillon and Savage, 2006, Issue Brief No. 1)
- Changing Church in the South (Ardery, 2006, Essays on Rural America)
- Rural Voting in the 2004 Election (Hamilton, 2006, Fact Sheet No. 2)
- Child Poverty in Rural America (O'Hare and Savage, 2006, Fact Sheet No. 1)
New England
- Out-of-School Time Matters: Activity Involvement and Positive Development among Coos County Youth (Sharp, 2010, New England Issue Brief No. 11)
- Demographic Trends in the Manchester-Nashua Metropolitain Area (Johnson and Macieski, 2009, New England Issue Brief No. 16)
- Stay or Leave Coos County? Parents' Messages Matter (Tucker, 2009, New England Issue Brief No. 14)
- Navigating the Teen Years: Promise and Peril for Northern New Hampshire Youth (Shattuck, 2009, New England Issue Brief No. 12)
- Youth Aspirations and Sense of Place in a Changing Rural Economy: The Coos Youth Study (Stracuzzi, 2009, New England Issue Brief No. 11)
- The State of Coos County: Local Perspectives on Community and Change (Colocousis, 2008, New England Issue Brief No. 7)
Selected current projects
Community & Environment in Rural America (CERA)
Challenged by a history of cycles of economic boom and bust, rural America is today confronted by globalization, resource depletion, changing demographics, new land use patterns, rising energy costs, and climate change. Carsey’s interdisciplinary CERA program uses over 10,000 household interviews from the UNH Survey Center to build knowledge of the socio-economic conditions, natural resource changes, and policy opportunities to sustain rural communities and ecosystems. The work includes solid, active partnerships with community development practitioners and community foundations across rural America.
Rural Child Abuse