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• 1. [Article] 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, ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Education's effect on poverty: the role of migration and labor markets Author: Marre, Alexander, Weber, Bruce, Cromartie, John, Gibbs, Robert, Fisher, Monica 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. Title: Education's effect on poverty: the role of migration and labor markets Author: Marre, Alexander, Weber, Bruce, Cromartie, John, Gibbs, Robert, Fisher, Monica 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. Close

• 2. [Article] Three essays on food security, food assistance, and migration

  This dissertation's three essays explore the determinants of food insecurity for rural farm households, the influence of rainfall variability and long-run changes in rainfall levels on the migration decisions ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Three essays on food security, food assistance, and migration Author: Lewin, Paul A. This dissertation's three essays explore the determinants of food insecurity for rural farm households, the influence of rainfall variability and long-run changes in rainfall levels on the migration decisions of working-age household heads, and the distributional impacts in core and periphery regions of food assistance to households in the hinterland. The first essay examines how socio-economic characteristics of households, local conditions, and public programs are associated with the probability that a farm household in rural Malawi is food insecure. The statistical analysis uses nationally representative data for 7,965 randomly-selected households interviewed during 2004/05 for the second Malawi Integrated Household Survey (IHS-2). Regressions are estimated separately for households in the north, center, and south of Malawi to account for spatial heterogeneity. Results of a Probit regression model reveal that households are less likely to be food insecure if they have more cultivated land per capita, receive agricultural field assistance, reside in a community with an irrigation scheme, and are headed by an individual with a high school degree. Factors that positively correlate with a household's food insecurity are number of household members and distance to markets. The second essay uses nationally representative data from Malawi's 2004/05 Integrated Household Survey (IHS-2) to examine whether rainfall conditions influence a rural worker’s decision to make a long-term move to an urban or another rural area. Results of a Full Information Maximum Likelihood regression model reveal that (1) rainfall shocks constrain migration, most likely by making it difficult for prospective migrants to cover costs of migration, (2) migrants choose to move to communities where rainfall variability is lower, and (3) rainfall shocks have larger negative effects on the earnings of recent migrants than on long-time residents’ earnings. The third essay examines how benefits from food assistance programs to needy households spillover between areas and among household income groups in the United States. We study the effect of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the Portland Oregon metro Core and its Periphery trade area, using a Multiregional Input- Output (MRIO) model based on a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM). The analysis captures direct, indirect and induced effects of SNAP on each region and spillover effects on the other region. SNAP benefits to the lower income household classes in each region are traced to their effects on the local economy in each region, and to the effects on household income by income class. The analysis finds that (1) the economic impact on the Portland Core from a given level of SNAP benefits to households in the Periphery is greater than the economic impact in the Periphery from the same level of SNAP benefits to households in the Core; (2) high-income households benefit more than low-income households from the indirect and induced economic impact of SNAP. Title: Three essays on food security, food assistance, and migration Author: Lewin, Paul A. This dissertation's three essays explore the determinants of food insecurity for rural farm households, the influence of rainfall variability and long-run changes in rainfall levels on the migration decisions of working-age household heads, and the distributional impacts in core and periphery regions of food assistance to households in the hinterland. The first essay examines how socio-economic characteristics of households, local conditions, and public programs are associated with the probability that a farm household in rural Malawi is food insecure. The statistical analysis uses nationally representative data for 7,965 randomly-selected households interviewed during 2004/05 for the second Malawi Integrated Household Survey (IHS-2). Regressions are estimated separately for households in the north, center, and south of Malawi to account for spatial heterogeneity. Results of a Probit regression model reveal that households are less likely to be food insecure if they have more cultivated land per capita, receive agricultural field assistance, reside in a community with an irrigation scheme, and are headed by an individual with a high school degree. Factors that positively correlate with a household's food insecurity are number of household members and distance to markets. The second essay uses nationally representative data from Malawi's 2004/05 Integrated Household Survey (IHS-2) to examine whether rainfall conditions influence a rural worker’s decision to make a long-term move to an urban or another rural area. Results of a Full Information Maximum Likelihood regression model reveal that (1) rainfall shocks constrain migration, most likely by making it difficult for prospective migrants to cover costs of migration, (2) migrants choose to move to communities where rainfall variability is lower, and (3) rainfall shocks have larger negative effects on the earnings of recent migrants than on long-time residents’ earnings. The third essay examines how benefits from food assistance programs to needy households spillover between areas and among household income groups in the United States. We study the effect of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the Portland Oregon metro Core and its Periphery trade area, using a Multiregional Input- Output (MRIO) model based on a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM). The analysis captures direct, indirect and induced effects of SNAP on each region and spillover effects on the other region. SNAP benefits to the lower income household classes in each region are traced to their effects on the local economy in each region, and to the effects on household income by income class. The analysis finds that (1) the economic impact on the Portland Core from a given level of SNAP benefits to households in the Periphery is greater than the economic impact in the Periphery from the same level of SNAP benefits to households in the Core; (2) high-income households benefit more than low-income households from the indirect and induced economic impact of SNAP. Close