Are Rural People More "Traditional" Than Urban People?

 

Rural voters tend to favor Republicans, while urban voters tend to favor Democrats. Some think this makes rural people more "traditional" than urban people. But the facts don't bear that out. Consider this article by Shelley Clark and Matthew M. Brooks in The Washington Post.

The Trump administration recently issued new guidelines for the Transportation Department, surprisingly prioritizing spending and infrastructure for “communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.” In other words, communities with large traditional families. We know what you’re probably thinking: That means rural and small-town America — presumably President Donald Trump’s core constituency — will disproportionately benefit from these funds.

But you could very well be wrong.

Many Americans still imagine rural communities as bastions of tradition, where marriage is widespread and families with lots of children abound. A quarter-century ago, these perceptions would have been largely correct. They no longer are.

Our research shows that over the past three decades, among women ages 15 to 44, marriage rates have fallen much faster for rural women and girls than for their urban counterparts. Between 1988 and 2018, the proportion of rural women who were married fell from 55 percent to 33 percent. Marriage among urban women also declined but to a lesser degree.

At the same time, cohabitation has risen more sharply and divorce has declined more slowly in rural America. By 2018, rural women were more likely than urban women to be in an unmarried, cohabiting partnership (19 percent vs. 14 percent). The proportion of women who have never married has also increased steadily for both rural and urban women. And although the proportion of urban women who have never married remains slightly higher, this is mainly because urban women marry at older ages.

Childbearing in the United States has fallen overall, but the “baby bust” has been larger among rural women. Although they still have slightly more children than urban women, a substantially higher share of rural children (54 percent) than urban children (45 percent) are born outside marriage. This is a significant change from years past. In 2002, the reverse was true. These rapid transformations in both marriage and nonmarital childbearing help explain why many rural residents and politicians are inclined to think the traditional family is under threat.

These changes in marriage and childbearing shape the family structures children are raised in, which has implications for their well-being. In a forthcoming study, we show that between 2005 and 2022, the proportion of rural children living with two married parents declined at more than twice the rate of urban children. White, Black and Hispanic children in rural areas were all affected by this decline, while at the same time the proportion of urban White children living with married parents remained stable, and the proportion of urban Black children living with married parents rose. There are now sizable rural-urban gaps in the percentage of White children living with married parents across all regions, ranging from 5.7 percentage points in the Midwest to 12.3 percentage points in the Northeast.

These findings suggest that using marriage and family size as the criteria for transportation funding is likely to disadvantage rural regions. There are more straightforward reasons, based on equity and common sense, to support rural transportation. Those who live in rural America have to travel greater distances to access necessities: school, health care, child care, work, even groceries. Effective infrastructure can reduce these costly geographic barriers.

Other policies could strengthen rural families themselves. Our study identifies two main reasons for lower rates of marriage and higher rates of childbearing outside marriage in rural areas: rural women’s lower educational levels (20.2 percent of rural women hold a bachelor’s degree vs. 33.2 percent of urban women) and lower rural household income (62.9 percent of rural vs. 50.5 percent of urban households earn less than $50,000). These results should not be surprising. It is well-established that there is a strong positive association between higher education and income and higher marriage rates and more children born within marriage.

Policies that expand access to higher education or create better-paying jobs, with family-friendly policies that include regular work schedules, parental leave and child care, would help alleviate the chronic strain rural families face. Rural communities and the scholars who study them have been clamoring for these types of programs and supports since at least the 1980s.

Moralistic prioritizing of traditional marriage over other types of families doesn’t produce sensible transportation policy. Nor does it generate effective rural development strategies. Instead of arbitrary decisions on infrastructure funding based on outdated stereotypes about small-town family life, we need policies based on sound social science data to support rural families’ real needs.