Collaborative Research: Linked Migration and Changing Labor Markets in the Rural United States

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。两个移民群体——上了年纪的婴儿潮一代和拉丁裔移民——正在向美国农村聚集。在未来的几十年里，这些群体将显著改变他们的目的地社区。虽然这些移民流都吸引了学术界的关注，但迄今为止的工作都是将这些移民群体分开对待，没有研究他们的综合影响如何重塑农村地区。采用两阶段的方法，这个合作研究项目将探索拉丁裔移民和婴儿潮一代到达相同或附近的农村目的地之间潜在的经济联系。该项目还将研究这些相互关联的移民流如何改变农村劳动力市场。在第一阶段，调查人员将使用公开的人口普查数据来确定吸引婴儿潮一代和拉丁美洲人的流量高于预期的地区。他们还将考察那些显示出农村中产阶级化迹象的地区，这种力量在理论上与相关的移民流有关。在这一阶段编制的这些县以下人口群体的地图将有助于可视化这些目的地的微观社会地理以及相互关联的移徙流。该项目的第二阶段将涉及密集的社区案例研究，并将侧重于拉丁裔工人、非拉丁裔工人和私营雇主的劳动力市场经验。在第二阶段，研究人员将采用访谈、参与观察和文本分析的方法来确定农村劳动力市场在日益多样化的移民流中是如何转变的。该项目将对未来几年可能大幅增加的农村结构调整的关键力量提供关键见解。农村社区需要更好地了解这些人口结构的转变，因为到2020年，超过500万的新婴儿潮移民可能会到达非大都市目的地，而拉丁裔移民不太可能消退。该项目将对人口年龄结构的总体转变可能重塑国内和跨国移民流以及在不同地理尺度上产生社会经济变化的方式产生新的经验和理论理解。此外，对农村空间内相互关联的移民系统和劳动力市场动态的研究将重新构建对中产阶级化和全球化的理解，迄今为止，这些理解主要来自以城市为基础的学术研究。最后，该项目将在一所主要研究型大学和一所本科院校之间建立合作研究关系。本科生和研究生的研究助理将通过参与该项目获得科学专业知识，作为该项目的一部分收集的数据将增强两所大学现有的本科课程。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Two groups of migrants, aging baby boomers and Latino immigrants, are converging on rural America. Together, these groups will significantly transform their destination communities in the coming decades. While these migration streams have each attracted scholarly attention, work to date has treated these groups of migrants separately, leaving unstudied how their combined effects are reshaping rural places. Using a two-staged methodology, this collaborative research project will explore potential economic linkages between the Latino immigrants and baby boomers arriving in the same or nearby rural destinations. The project also will examine how these linked migration streams are transforming rural labor markets. In Stage 1, the investigators will use publicly available census data to identify areas attracting higher-than-expected flows of both baby boomers and Latinos. They also will examine areas that show evidence of rural gentrification, a force theoretically tied to linked migration streams. Maps of these population groups at the sub-county level developed at this stage will facilitate visualization of the micro-scale social geographies of these destinations with linked migration streams. Stage 2 of the project will involve intensive community case studies and will focus on labor-market experiences of Latino workers, non-Latino workers, and private employers. During Stage 2, the investigators will use interviews, participant observation, and textual analysis to determine how rural labor markets are transformed in the wake of increasingly diverse migration streams.This project will provide key insights into critical forces of rural restructuring that are likely to substantially increase in the coming years. Rural communities need to better understand these demographic transformations, because more than 5 million new baby boomer migrants are likely to arrive in nonmetropolitan destinations by 2020, and Latino migration is unlikely to subside. This project will generate new empirical and theoretical understandings of the ways in which aggregate transformations in the age structure of the population are likely to reshape domestic and transnational migration streams as well as generate socioeconomic change at different geographic scales. Furthermore, examinations of linked migration systems and labor market dynamics within rural spaces will reframe understandings of gentrification and globalization, which to date largely have been drawn from urban-based scholarship. Finally, the project will build a collaborative research relationship between a major research university and an undergraduate institution. Undergraduate and graduate research assistants will gain scientific expertise through their involvement with the project, and the data collected as part of this project will enhance existing undergraduate course offerings at both institutions.