psu.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/t/1_np...

"The current pro-natalist project is weaponizing an imaginary rural America in ways that harm real rural Americans today."

My DeJong Lecture, and the others in the 20th anniversary event, is now available: "How pro-natalist policies harm rural Americans."

While, yes, marriage rates are much lower among Blacks than among whites, within each racial group, children are more likely to be raised in marital households in cities than in rural areas. (citation in a post at the end of the thread, forthcoming.)

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Looking more closely at relation types. Rural areas have seen relative growth in both cohabitation and divorce, and outstrip urban areas in both.
tinyurl.com/RPRN2024
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Marriage is especially unlikely among rural women who have children. 54% of rural births now occur outside of marriage, compared to 45% of urban births.
tinyurl.com/RPRN2024
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I’m a family demographer studying rural/ urban differences. The stereotypes DOT may be relying on are out of date. In an article in Demography, my coauthors & I show that fertility rates have converged, while marriage is now slightly more common in urban areas.
doi.org/10.1215/0070...
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New Trump admin guidelines prioritize transportation spending and infrastructure for “communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average,” which many are reading as a shorthand for subsidizing white rural communities.
The truth is complicated.
tinyurl.com/DOTpolicy2025
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