Poverty and Place in the Context of the American South

In the United States, poverty has been historically higher and disproportionately concentrated in the American South. Despite this fact, much of the conventional poverty literature in the United States has focused on urban poverty in cities, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. Relatively less American poverty research has focused on the enduring economic distress in the South, which Wimberley (2008:899) calls “a neglected regional crisis of historic and contemporary urgency.” Accordingly, this dissertation contributes to the inequality literature by focusing much needed attention on poverty in the South.

Each empirical chapter focuses on a different aspect of poverty in the South. Chapter 2 examines why poverty is higher in the South relative to the Non-South. Chapter 3 focuses on poverty predictors within the South and whether there are differences in the sub-regions of the Deep South and Peripheral South. These two chapters compare the roles of family demography, economic structure, racial/ethnic composition and heterogeneity, and power resources in shaping poverty. Chapter 4 examines whether poverty in the South has been shaped by historical racial regimes.

The Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) United States datasets (2000, 2004, 2007, 2010, and 2013) (derived from the U.S. Census Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement) provide all the individual-level data for this study. The LIS sample of 745,135 individuals is nested in rich economic, political, and racial state-level data compiled from multiple sources (e.g. U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Agriculture, University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research, etc.). Analyses involve a combination of techniques including linear probability regression models to predict poverty and binary decomposition of poverty differences.

Chapter 2 results suggest that power resources, followed by economic structure, are most important in explaining the higher poverty in the South. This underscores the salience of political and economic contexts in shaping poverty across place. Chapter 3 results indicate that individual-level economic factors are the largest predictors of poverty within the South, and even more so in the Deep South. Moreover, divergent results between the South, Deep South, and Peripheral South illustrate how the impact of poverty predictors can vary in different contexts. Chapter 4 results show significant bivariate associations between historical race regimes and poverty among Southern states, although regression models fail to yield significant effects. Conversely, historical race regimes do have a small, but significant effect in explaining the Black-White poverty gap. Results also suggest that employment and education are key to understanding poverty among Blacks and the Black-White poverty gap. Collectively, these chapters underscore why place is so important for understanding poverty and inequality. They also illustrate the salience of micro and macro characteristics of place for helping create, maintain, and reproduce systems of inequality across place.

Young caregivers in the end-of-life setting: a population-based profile of an emerging group.

PURPOSE: Little is known about young caregivers of people with advanced life-limiting illness. Better understanding of the needs and characteristics of these young caregivers can inform development of palliative care and other support services. METHODS: A population-based analysis of caregivers was performed from piloted questions included in the 2001-2007 face-to-face annual health surveys of 23,706 South Australians on the death of a loved one, caregiving provided, and characteristics of the deceased individual and caregiver. The survey was representative of the population by age, gender, and region of residence. FINDINGS: Most active care was provided by older, close family members, but large numbers of young people (ages 15-29) also provided assistance to individuals with advanced life-limiting illness. They comprised 14.4% of those undertaking "hands-on" care on a daily or intermittent basis, whom we grouped together as active caregivers. Almost as many young males as females participate in active caregiving (men represent 46%); most provide care while being employed, including 38% who work full-time. Over half of those engaged in hands-on care indicated the experience to be worse or much worse than expected, with young people more frequently reporting dissatisfaction thereof. Young caregivers also exhibited an increased perception of the need for assistance with grief. CONCLUSION: Young people can be integral to end-of-life care, and represent a significant cohort of active caregivers with unique needs and experiences. They may have a more negative experience as caregivers, and increased needs for grief counseling services compared to other age cohorts of caregivers.

Changes to the North Atlantic subtropical high and its role in the intensification of summer rainfall variability in the southeastern United States

This study investigates the changes of the North Atlantic subtropical high (NASH) and its impact on summer precipitation over the southeastern (SE) United States using the 850-hPa geopotential height field in the National Centers forEnvironmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis, the 40-yr European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis (ERA-40), long-term rainfall data, and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) model simulations during the past six decades (1948-2007). The results show that the NASH in the last 30 yr has become more intense, and its western ridge has displaced westward with an enhanced meridional movement compared to the previous 30 yr. When the NASH moved closer to the continental United States in the three most recent decades, the effect of the NASH on the interannual variation of SE U.S. precipitation is enhanced through the ridge's north-south movement. The study's attribution analysis suggested that the changes of the NASH are mainly due to anthropogenic warming. In the twenty-first century with an increase of the atmospheric CO2 concentration, the center of the NASH would be intensified and the western ridge of the NASH would shift farther westward. These changes would increase the likelihood of both strong anomalously wet and dry summers over the SEUnited States in the future, as suggested by the IPCC AR4 models. © 2011 American Meteorological Society.