Transcript Making Ends Meet in the Rural Wabash Valley

Making Ends Meet in the Rural
Wabash Valley
Wabash Valley
Quality of Life Survey
2005
Brought to you by…
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The Sociology Research Lab
The students of Soc 380 & PSCI 245
James Cassell & Tom Steiger, Department
of Sociology
The Sample
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We randomly sampled 1,353 households from
the six counties surrounding Terre Haute
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Clay, Park, Sullivan, Vermillion & Vigo counties in
Indiana
Clark & Edgar counties in Illinois
Calls were made between 5 & 9 PM, Sunday
through Thursday from February 14th through
March 10th
482 interviews were completed for a 36%
response rate
Margin of error: ± 4%
Focus on “Making Ends Meet”
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Our interview asks about
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Regular paid employment
Businesses run from home
Paid employment done at home
“Informal” economic activities done to save
money, earn extra money, or in exchange for
something else
Data refer to households, not individuals
Household Survival Strategies
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Term for how people go about “making ends
meet”
For most families, this mainly involves paid
employment at a “regular” job and budgeting to
live within that income
Survival strategies become more complicated in
areas which …
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Have lost jobs, or
Had few jobs to begin with
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We refer to this as sort of changes as economic
restructuring
Rural sociologists have found considerable economic
restructuring in rural settings and small towns
Result is often relatively fewer jobs in general & fewer
well-paying jobs in particular
Leading to more difficulty “making ends meet”
One response is to move somewhere else with greater
economic opportunity
Question is how to those who stay “survive” in a more
harsh economic climate
“Is your family better off or worse
off than a year ago?”
Better Off
45
Worse Off
32
Don't Know
23
0
10
20
Percentage; N=482
30
40
50
Formal Economic Activity
Regular
Employment
76.1
Home
Employment
7.3
Home Business
15.8
21
None
0
20
40
(Percentage; N=482)
60
80
Informal Economic Activity
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Refers to things people do to save money,
earn extra money, or in exchange for
something else
Most will be untaxed or outside the
“formal” economy
Expect that some activities will be done
mostly to save money while others will be
done to earn money
We asked whether anyone in
household had done following in the
past 12 months
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Household repair or
handiwork
Repair or service cars,
trucks, farm equipment
Sell Avon, Mary K,
Tupperware, etc.
Personal service (e.g.
childcare, housework)
Raise farm animals for
food
Garden or sell fresh
produce
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Can, freeze, or dry food
Make hand crafts
Wood cutting (e.g.
firewood)
Have yard sales, flea
markets, or sell item on
the internet
Yard work or landscaping
Sewing
Bookkeeping or other
financial work
Painting or wallpapering
Some other activity
Informal Economic Activities
26.3
Handiwork
17.8
Service Cars
Sell Avon
5.4
9.5
Personal Service
Farm Animals
5.4
15.4
Garden
24.1
Can Food
Hand Crafts
8.5
10.8
Wood Cutting
23.9
Yard Sales
19.1
Yard work
Sewing
Bookkeeping
Painting
Other
9.5
8.9
11.8
12.1
Percentage; N=482
Number of Informal Economic
Activities Performed in Household
4 or more
19.5
3
10.4
2
16.6
1
19.3
None
34.2
0
10
20
Percentage; N=482
30
40
Reasons for Doing Informal
Economic Activities
Handiwork
42.5
44.2
Service Cars
Sell Avon
12.6
3.8
Personal Service
11.6
34.6
5.8
7.7
17.4
26.1
Farm Animals
7.9
8.7
38.5
19.2
Garden
48.6
Can Food
50
3.8
9.5
5.4
Save
2.6 3.4
Earn
Hand Crafts
29.3
36.5
Wood Cutting
Yard Sales
9.6
47.8
4.3
35.9
Sewing
Painting
7.3
11.5
5.2
Yard work
Bookkeeping
24.4
10.9
34.8
4.3
15.2
27.9
4.3
20.9
43.9
2.3
5.3
Percentage; Respondent May Cite
More than One Reason; N varies
3.5
Exchange
Government Benefit Income
Medicare /
Medicaid
32.8
TANF
2.5
Social Security
31.3
Workman's
Compensation
2.1
Unemployment
Compensation
9.5
0
5
10
15
Percentage; N=482
20
25
30
35
Who Performs Informal Economic
Activities
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Just under two thirds of our sample performed
some informal economic activity
Raises the question of why some household do
while others don’t
“Common sense” suggests that
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Household who feel they are “worse off” will do more
informal activities than those who are “better off”
Households with higher incomes will perform fewer
informal activities because they don’t need to save or
make money
Common sense is wrong
(at least in our sample)
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The percentage of “worse off” households
who perform informal activities is about
the same as “better off” households
The percentage of “doers” is about equal
to “don’t doers” in each category of
income
We suspect that some of these activities
are part of rural culture or “way of life”