Baby Boom Migration and Its Impact on Rural America

Members of the baby boom cohort, now 45-63 years old, are approaching a period in their lives when moves to rural and small-town destinations increase. An analysis of age-specific, net migration during the 1990s reveals extensive shifts in migration patterns as Americans move through different life-cycle stages. Assuming similar age patterns of migration, this report identifies the types of nonmetropolitan counties that are likely to experience the greatest surge in baby boom migration during 2000-20 and projects the likely impact on the size and distribution of retirement-age populations in destination counties. The analysis finds a significant increase in the propensity to migrate to nonmetro counties as people reach their fifties and sixties and projects a shift in migration among boomers toward more isolated settings, especially those with high natural and urban amenities and lower housing costs. If baby boomers follow past migration patterns, the nonmetro population age 55-75 will increase by 30 percent between now and 2020.Baby boomers, migration, rural development, life-cycle migration, population projections., Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

FOOD EXPENDITURES BY U.S. HOUSEHOLDS: LOOKING AHEAD TO 2020

By 2020, the effects of demographic changes and income growth will increase per capita spending on food 7.1 percent. Income growth alone, which will effect spending increases of almost 10 percent on away-from-home foods and 3 percent on at-home foods, will raise per capita food spending about 6 percent. Expansion of the Nation's population will drive growth in food demand and, combined with rising incomes and other demographic changes, is projected to boost total U.S. food spending 26.3 percent. On a national level, the slow but steady growth of the population will result in little variation among expenditure growth levels of individual food groups. The largest projected increase is for fruits, up 27.5 percent, while the smallest is for both beef and beverages, up 21.1 percent.Household food expenditures, income, demographics, projections, Consumer Expenditure Survey, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Migration in the Nonmetropolitan South

Data from multiple sources are analyzed to provide a picture of domestic migration patterns, characteristics of migrants, and effects of migration on poverty and human capital in the rural South during the 1990s. Migration trends in the 1990s were quite favorable for the rural South. Net migration was positive and substantial and represented a gain of people in their early career years including a disproportionate share of young families. The brain drain that characterized the 1980s has at least slowed, and possibly stopped. The comparative advantage of rural areas is increasingly found in their natural amenities and low population densities and corresponding attractiveness as places to live and recreate. At the same time, the positive effects of production factors that attract manufacturing enterprises are still very much in evidence in the nonmetro South. The most economically disadvantaged areas of the nonmetro South may not be benefiting as much as other areas from the rural migration rebound. Net inmigration to rural areas was widespread, but one-fourth of the counties in the nonmetro South continued to experience outmigration, although at a lower rate than in the 1980s

FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL COMMODITY CONSUMPTION IN THE UNITED STATES: LOOKING AHEAD TO 2020

U.S. consumption of food commodities is projected to rise through the year 2020, mainly due to an increase in population. But the mix of commodities is expected to shift because of an older and more diverse population, rising income, higher educational attainment, improved diet and health knowledge, and growing popularity of eating out. This study analyzes data from USDA's food consumption survey to project the consumption, through the year 2020, of 25 food groups and 22 commodity groups. Per capita consumption of fish, poultry, eggs, yogurt, fruits, nuts and seeds, lettuce, tomatoes, some other vegetables, grains, and vegetable oils is predicted to rise, whereas consumption of beef, pork, other meat, milk, cheese, potatoes, and sugar is expected to fall. The growth of the at-home and away-from-home markets varies from one commodity to another. Fruit consumption is expected to lead all commodities in growth in the at-home market, and fish consumption is expected to lead in growth in the away-from-home market.Eating out, diet and health knowledge, food-commodity translation database, food consumption projections, commodity consumption projections, Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals, 1994-96 and 1998, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Inflammation induced by bacterial cell wall fragments in the rat air pouch. Comparison of rat strains and measurement of arachidonic acid metabolites.

Streptococcal cell wall fragments, suspended in phosphate-buffered saline, were injected into a preformed subcutaneous air pouch in rats. The advantage of the air pouch model is the capacity for quantitation of exudative, cellular, and proliferative responses and soluble mediators. Accumulation of pouch fluid containing many leukocytes occurred during the first 3 days. Granulation tissue separable from the surrounding subcutaneous tissue developed by 6 days. Immunofluorescence and immunoperoxidase staining showed the presence of cell walls in inflammatory cells both in pouch fluid and in pouch tissue. Histologic features of this inflammation included an acute exudative phase with a predominantly neutrophil infiltration followed by a chronic phase characterized by fibroblast proliferation, formation of blood vessels, and infiltration with mononuclear cells. The lining of the pouch before injection of cell wall developed morphologic features of synovial membrane, which became more evident during the chronic phase of induced inflammation. Outbred Sprague-Dawley and inbred Lewis rats developed more pouch fluid, cell numbers in the pouch fluid, and granulation tissue than inbred Buffalo rats. The arachidonic acid metabolites, prostaglandin E2 and leukotriene B4, were measured in the pouch fluid, and more of each was produced in the Lewis than in the Buffalo strain. These measurements of inflammation are consistent with the relative susceptibility of these strains to cell-wall-induced arthritis. This model of inflammation can be used in the examination of the regulatory mechanisms of evolving chronic inflammation

Localized gut-associated lymphoid tissue hemorrhage induced by intravenous peptidoglycan-polysaccharide polymers.

A hemorrhage into gut-associated lymphoid tissue developed as early as 3 min after the intravenous injection of group A streptococcal peptidoglycan-polysaccharide polymers into rats. Extravasated erythrocytes were specifically located in the lamina propria and organized lymphoid follicles of the intestines and mesenteric lymph nodes and did not occur in the lungs, kidneys, liver, spleen, adrenal glands, or submandibular and popliteal lymph nodes, as determined by gross and histologic observations and measurement of radiolabeled erythrocytes. Petechial hemorrhage was preferentially located within the intestine to the distal ileum, Peyer's patches, and lymphoid aggregates of the colon. The hemorrhage was transient and occurred in a dose-dependent fashion. It was maximal 5 min after injection and resolved completely by 3 days. A unique feature of this altered vascular permeability was the absence of polymorphonuclear leukocytic infiltration, edema, vasculitis, and tissue necrosis

Education's effect on poverty: the role of migration and labor markets

Improving the quality of education and encouraging students to stay in school is one possible strategy for reducing poverty and raising local well-being in rural areas. A potential obstacle to this strategy, however, is outmigration to metro areas due to the lack of demand for this better-educated rural workforce, and secondarily, the necessity of leaving rural areas to attend college. Even where robust rural job growth exists, the lower wages offered by rural employers dampen the poverty reducing power of education. In this paper, we test for both a "direct" effect of educational attainment on the poverty status of rural adults, which operates through access to higher-quality jobs; and an "indirect" effect, which operates through a higher likelihood of outmigration to urban areas and hence access to higher monetary returns to education. Drawing from a sample of 701 households in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we find that, in general, better-educated rural household heads are more likely to move to urban areas during the 1990s and that poverty status is affected by that move. As a first step in assessing the impact of labor market conditions, we examine the effect of the unemployment rate in the county of origin on the migration decision. Education is a key determinant of economic well-being for both individuals and places. Despite overall improvements, however, rural residents still have significantly lower educational attainment than urban residents. Improving the quality of education and encouraging students to stay in school is one possible strategy for reducing poverty and raising local well-being. A better-educated workforce should have higher incomes. Partridge and Rickman showed that both education levels and increases in attainment explained spatial variation in poverty reduction. Outmigration to metro areas is a potential obstacle to this strategy, however. Migration from rural areas occurs because of the lack of demand for a better-educated rural workforce and the necessity of leaving rural areas to attend college (Gibbs). Outmigration may prevent local human capital levels from reaching the threshold required to attract new industry or encourage expansion in the existing economic base. Even where robust rural job growth exists, the lower skill levels and wages offered by rural employers, on average, both dampen the poverty-reducing power of education and hinder long-term development prospects associated with an increasingly high-skill economy. This study documents a direct and an indirect effect of education on household poverty status. Data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is used to obtain a sample of 701 working-age (25-64 years of age) household heads that lived in a non-metro county in 1993. The metropolitan and poverty status of their households is observed in 1999. For adults who live in a rural area, greater educational attainment has a direct effect on eventual poverty status by increasing the likelihood of obtaining higher income (wherever they live) and an indirect effect on eventual poverty by increasing the likelihood of moving to an urban place with better income-earning opportunities. Controlling for the fact that better-educated rural adults are more likely to move to urban areas, the study finds that migration has an influence on the likelihood of being poor