A few weeks ago, the New York Times had an article on rising support for the National Rally in rural France, which it said was due to a feeling of being neglected by the national government: "Residents in this sparsely populated region ... - describe what is happening to their community as 'desertification,' by which they mean an emptying out of services, and of their lives." Rural areas in the United States are also moving to the right, and people often give a similar explanation--they are "left behind" by changes in the economy, think the government isn't interested in their problems, and in some accounts resent the places and groups that seem to be moving ahead of them. Economic growth has clearly been lagging in many small towns and rural areas, but I haven't seen much information about changes in political views, so I'll look at that issue in this post.
The General Social Survey classifies places into six groups: central city of the twelve largest metropolitan statistical areas, suburbs of the 12 largest MSAs, central city of the 13-100 MSAs, suburbs of the 13-100 MSAs, counties with towns of 10,000 or more, and counties without towns of 10,000 or more. I combined the first four, so that there are three groups. Then I calculated the correlation between year and opinions for each question.* I'll start with two general measures of political orientation: self-rating as liberal, moderate, or conservative; and whether the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and private business. Each is coded so that a positive correlation means that opinions have tended to move in a liberal direction since the question was first asked (in the 1970s).
MSA Town Rural
POLVIEWS .00 -.05 -.07
HELPNOT .01 -.01 -.07
So urban areas have stayed about the same, while rural areas have become more conservative on both (generally, differences of about .03 or more are statistically significant).
Now a few "social issues," again with positive signs meaning liberal trends: legal abortion, whether sex between two adults of the same sex is wrong, whether there should be prayer in public schools, and whether a police permit should be required in order to buy a gun:
MSA Town Rural
ABSINGLE -.05 -.05 -.03
HOMOSEX .37 .32 .32
PRAYER .07 .02 .01
GUNLAW -.03 -.03 -.06
Rural areas have become more conservative relative to MSAs on three of the four.
Now some opinions related to race and ethnicity: whether racial inequality is mostly due to discrimination against blacks, whether it's because blacks don't have the motivation and will power to get ahead, and whether the number of immigrants should be increased or reduced. Again, a positive sign means a liberal trend:
MSA Town Rural
RACDIF1 .06 .04 -.06
RACDIF4 .22 .15 .17
LETIN1A .18 .15 .21
Rural areas have become relatively more conservative on the two questions about race, but there's no clear difference on immigration (that question has been asked only since the 1990s, so the standard errors are larger).
Now some questions about government spending on various issues. Positive numbers mean a trend towards support for more spending. There are a lot of questions, so I won't list them all, just talk about the general pattern and some notable cases.
MSA Town Rural
Nataid .15 .10 .07
Natpark .01 .05 .03
Natarms .01 .05 .12
Natroad .09 .08 .07
Nateduc .13 .15 .16
Natrace .14 .10 .09
Natheal .00 .01 .06
Natenvir .02 .01 .04
Natcity -.02 .02 .05
Natmass .05 .04 .10
Natfare .11 .08 .06
Natsoc .03 .05 .09
Natfarey .06 .01 .05
Natspac .19 .18 .22
Almost all of the trends are positive (towards favoring more spending)--the 1970s were a time of backlash against government spending. The average across the questions is about the same for all groups, but there are some differences for individual items. The upward trend is stronger in rural areas for spending on defense and the military (NATARMS), and weaker for foreign aid (NATAID), spending to help blacks (NATRACE), and welfare (NATFARE). So far, it's a relative conservative shift in rural areas. But the upward trend is also stronger for social security (NATSOC), health care (NATHEAL), mass transity (NATMASS), and even "solving the problems of big cities" (NATCITY).
Finally, there's a question on the amount of federal income taxes you pay. A positive number means that it's too low or about right rather than too high.
MSA Town Rural
TAX .06 .04 -.01
People in MSAs have been getting more satisfied (or less dissatisfied) and people in rural areas have stayed about the same. That is, although people in rural areas have become more favorable towards spending on a lot of things, they haven't become more willing to accept taxes.
Overall, the movement in rural areas hasn't been a straightforward conservative one. The spending questions suggest that people in rural areas have moved towards wanting the government to do more for Americans in general, but not for blacks specifically, and not for foreign nations. There doesn't seem to be growing resentment against cities--if anything, it's diminished (see NATCITY and NATMASS). And although rural areas have become relatively more conservative on race (NATBLACK, RACDIF1, RACDIF4), they haven't generally turned against "outsiders" (see LETIN1A).
*I limited the analysis to whites.
No comments:
Post a Comment