Families in troubled times : adapting to change in rural America /
The turbulent decade of the 1980s began with financial calamity in several sectors of the United States economy, from automaking to agriculture. The rural Midwest experienced its worst economic decline since the Depression years. Thousands of farmers lost their operations, and the small rural commun...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
A. de Gruyter,
©1994.
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| Series: | Social institutions and social change
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| Summary: | The turbulent decade of the 1980s began with financial calamity in several sectors of the United States economy, from automaking to agriculture. The rural Midwest experienced its worst economic decline since the Depression years. Thousands of farmers lost their operations, and the small rural communities that serve agriculture often changed from prosperous business centers to struggling villages with many empty buildings and boarded-up storefronts along their main streets. Families in Troubled Times examines the plight of several hundred rural families who have lived through these difficult years. The participants in the Iowa Youth and Families Project, the subjects of the present study, include farmers, people from small towns, and those who lost farms and other businesses as a result of the "farm crisis." The book traces the influence of economic hardship on the emotions, behavior, and relationships of parents, children, siblings, husbands, and wives. The results of the study show that although economic stress has a powerful adverse effect on individuals and families, countervailing social influence can help to blunt these negative processes and to assist in the repair of the personal and interpersonal damage they produce. |
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| Physical Description: | xi, 303 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-292) and indexes. |
| ISBN: | 0202304876 9780202304878 0202304884 9780202304885 |