WORKING WOMEN IN RURAL AMERICA
An Interview with Ann Tickamyer, Ph.D
Ann Tickamyer is a Rural Fellow with the Carsey Institute and Professor of Sociology at Ohio University. She currently serves as Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and is a past Presidential Research Scholar. Her research focuses on rural poverty and inequality, gender, work, and development, and social welfare provision in the U.S. and Indonesia. She is coeditor of two books, Communities of Work: Rural Restructuring in Local and Global Context, and The Sociology of Spatial Inequality (forthcoming from SUNY Press in 2007).
Interviewed by Amy Seif on 3/09/07.
Amy Seif: In poor rural settings, does having a job improve the livelihood of women who otherwise might be on welfare?
Ann Tickamyer: It may, but the odds are often against it. The very limited number of jobs in poor, isolated rural communities, especially those that pay decent wages and provide benefits means that employment is no guarantee of overcoming poverty or being able to provide adequately for one’s families. When combined with the lack of other necessary supports for successful employment, such as limited availability of safe, affordable, and reliable child care, many low income rural women have a difficult time making work pay enough to provide financial stability. In my research on welfare recipients in poor rural communities in Appalachian Ohio, having a job significantly increases family income, but still not enough to rise out of poverty.
AS: Why is this especially the case for women who reside in poor rural areas as opposed to more affluent or urban communities?
AT: Employment can be looked at both as a supply and a demand issue, and rural women face problems from both ends. Many low income rural women lack the education, skills, and experience that help to find jobs. However, the demand component is especially important and different in rural communities. Rural areas by and large have fewer employment opportunities. Unlike more vibrant urban economies, rural labor markets with little economic diversity or growth cannot provide the numbers or types of jobs that are necessary to provide adequate employment. The poorer and more isolated the area, the fewer jobs will be available.
In a time when global competition drives many firms to seek cheaper labor and production costs overseas, the closure of one plant can mean the end of decent livelihoods for many workers in a rural community. We often hear disparaging comments about the quality of jobs at fast food restaurants or large discount retailers – low wages, limited or no benefits, uncertain or irregular hours, no career ladder for advancement. Nowadays in many rural communities, a job at Walmart may be a prized attainment, the best employment available for a working mother with limited education and experience. Other rural conditions may exacerbate the problems. Long commutes to jobs in a time of rising fuel costs add to the expense of working. Ditto for problems of finding and paying for child care. In one of the communities that I study, there is no agency-based child care available, not even church affiliated child care. Some women can enlist help from family and friends, but for many this isn’t an option.
In many ways these are common sense problems, but they don’t have easy solutions. Creating jobs is not an overnight process. Finding funds for important services stretches the limited finances of poor rural places.
AS: Does your recent research in Appalachian Ohio show nonworking rural women to be better off than low income working women?
AT: No, work pays, and pays in a variety of ways; it’s just that it doesn’t always pay enough. In 2005, our most recent survey of low income users of human service agency services shows that working recipients average a substantial $4,000 more per year in household income than nonworkers. This still comes to under $14,000 per year, which is not very generous for a household of four and not enough to rise above poverty. There are other ways that work may benefit these women. In focus groups and interviews, women relate their agreement with values of hard work and self-sufficiency and their pride in having a job and providing good role models for their children. On the other hand, working women experience as many or more hardships than nonworkers, reporting episodes of food shortages, bouts of homelessness, and lack of health care. They are especially vulnerable to lack of medical care, since the jobs they hold do not usually provide health insurance.
AS: What strategies other than work for wages do rural women employ to improve their livelihood?
AT: They income package, piecing together a livelihood from a variety of public and private services, benefits and sources accessed by the various members of their households. The most common form of public assistance is food stamps, but many other forms of aid are tapped, ranging from disability payments to school lunches for their kids. The majority report regular visits to food pantries. They trade, barter, and self-provision, working off the books as well as for wages. Flea markets are important as both an inexpensive source of needed items and as a way to make money. In general, providing for themselves and their families takes a great deal of hard work and ingenuity beyond labor force participation.
AS: What do the findings of your research in Appalachian Ohio indicate for welfare policy?
AT: This is a complicated issue and not easy to summarize in a few words. PRWORA, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, better known as “welfare reform,” was designed to reduce the welfare rolls, help recipients move from welfare to work, and through devolution, provide state and local jurisdictions the authority and resources to serve the specific needs of their communities and citizens. Examined nationally, there is little question that it has accomplished many of these goals, although some better than others. The devil is in the local details. National statistics by aggregating across all places obscure the variability created by devolution and the problems that may be specific to some areas and regions. Even poor rural areas have drastically reduced their welfare rolls, but at the same time they have a difficult time meeting other goals because of problems related to their size and location. The lack of jobs makes it hard to move recipients into work; lack of capacity makes it hard for local agencies to design and implement effective assistance programs; and entrenched interests means that state and local elites may have more to say about how programs are run and resources allocated than the persons they are intended to serve. All of these problems were evident in our study. One conclusion we came to is that contrary to theory, devolution is as likely to reinforce or exacerbate existing spatial inequalities as it is to assist overcoming them. Another is that poor rural areas need different programs, rules, and resources than large urban areas.
AS: How does current welfare policy deny rural women the choice to be full-time mothers, and what are the problems that women face when choosing between being a “good mother” or a “good recipient?”
AT: These are not problems unique to rural women; current welfare policy limits the eligibility period for cash assistance and requires all women who are capable to seek work. It’s just that the dilemmas created by these policies often are even starker in rural areas where the lack of jobs and the lack of child care options force mothers to choose between them. Thus mothers in our study adhered to mainstream family values that define an ideal mother as one who creates a child-centered home and makes children a number one priority. Yet, welfare reform regulations demand they leave their children to participate in welfare-to-work programs and ultimately in regular employment. As a result, women receiving assistance often confronted the difficult choices of being a ‘‘good mother’’ or a ‘‘good recipient’’ in an environment where alternatives to their own care for their children are in short supply.