Wilton Vicente Gonçalves da Cruz, Mário Sacomano Neto
This study aims to investigate the financialization of the Brazilian agricultural market, focusing on land concentration and foreignization. It emphasizes the role of the state in the financialization of land. This exploratory and descriptive study uses documentary research and social network analysis. The study is supported by strategic action field theory and the sociology of finance. The results reveal significant land ownership concentration in Brazil among large multinational agribusinesses and foreign institutional investors. A significant portion of investment flows in Brazilian land acquisition transactions was of foreign origin. Large agribusiness multinationals and large financial asset managers held prominent structural positions in the network of transactions involving large Brazilian lands. Financialization in the Brazilian agricultural sector can lead to management practices that maximize the interests of companies and financial markets by increasing these actors' control over this important segment of the Brazilian economy. From the perspectives of field theory and the sociology of finance, this study fills a gap in the literature by addressing the expansion of the agricultural market and agribusiness in Brazil as spaces for the reproduction of financial actors and markets. It also emphasizes the role of the state in this process.
{"title":"The Financialization of Agriculture in Brazil: Land Concentration and Foreignization","authors":"Wilton Vicente Gonçalves da Cruz, Mário Sacomano Neto","doi":"10.1111/ruso.70024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.70024","url":null,"abstract":"This study aims to investigate the financialization of the Brazilian agricultural market, focusing on land concentration and foreignization. It emphasizes the role of the state in the financialization of land. This exploratory and descriptive study uses documentary research and social network analysis. The study is supported by strategic action field theory and the sociology of finance. The results reveal significant land ownership concentration in Brazil among large multinational agribusinesses and foreign institutional investors. A significant portion of investment flows in Brazilian land acquisition transactions was of foreign origin. Large agribusiness multinationals and large financial asset managers held prominent structural positions in the network of transactions involving large Brazilian lands. Financialization in the Brazilian agricultural sector can lead to management practices that maximize the interests of companies and financial markets by increasing these actors' control over this important segment of the Brazilian economy. From the perspectives of field theory and the sociology of finance, this study fills a gap in the literature by addressing the expansion of the agricultural market and agribusiness in Brazil as spaces for the reproduction of financial actors and markets. It also emphasizes the role of the state in this process.","PeriodicalId":47924,"journal":{"name":"RURAL SOCIOLOGY","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145056687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ma Suza, Jeroen Warner, Grazia Pacillo, Peter Läderach, Han van Dijk
This study investigates the often‐overlooked interpersonal conflicts within the climate and security nexus, focusing on how climate impact exacerbates women's security risks on Hatiya Island, Bangladesh. While climate security literature typically examines group‐level conflicts, such as between farmers and pastoralists or between ethnic groups, this study shifts the focus to intra‐ and inter‐household dynamics, exploring conflicts experienced by women with spouses, family members, and neighbors. Using life history interviews, the study reveals how climate vulnerabilities, economic hardship, and entrenched gender norms heighten tensions, leading to conflicts both within households and among neighboring women in a rural patriarchal social context. The findings suggest that climate‐induced economic challenges intensify domestic tensions while land scarcity from coastal erosion and resource degradation fuels disputes among neighboring women. The paper underscores addressing the deep‐rooted social norms and institutionalized gender inequalities that deepen women's vulnerabilities to climate impacts in conservative societies like those found in Bangladesh and across large parts of the global South to protect them from violence.
{"title":"Women's Vulnerabilities to Climate Insecurity and Violence: Household‐Level Evidence From Bangladesh","authors":"Ma Suza, Jeroen Warner, Grazia Pacillo, Peter Läderach, Han van Dijk","doi":"10.1111/ruso.70022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.70022","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates the often‐overlooked interpersonal conflicts within the climate and security nexus, focusing on how climate impact exacerbates women's security risks on Hatiya Island, Bangladesh. While climate security literature typically examines group‐level conflicts, such as between farmers and pastoralists or between ethnic groups, this study shifts the focus to intra‐ and inter‐household dynamics, exploring conflicts experienced by women with spouses, family members, and neighbors. Using life history interviews, the study reveals how climate vulnerabilities, economic hardship, and entrenched gender norms heighten tensions, leading to conflicts both within households and among neighboring women in a rural patriarchal social context. The findings suggest that climate‐induced economic challenges intensify domestic tensions while land scarcity from coastal erosion and resource degradation fuels disputes among neighboring women. The paper underscores addressing the deep‐rooted social norms and institutionalized gender inequalities that deepen women's vulnerabilities to climate impacts in conservative societies like those found in Bangladesh and across large parts of the global South to protect them from violence.","PeriodicalId":47924,"journal":{"name":"RURAL SOCIOLOGY","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145056688","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The damaging effects agriculture has on the environment have resulted, increasingly, in conflict between the urban community and farmers. The extent to which this conflict might be resolved depends, in part, on whether farmers and the wider community differ in their degree of concern for the environment. We measured the engagement of farmers and the wider community with biodiversity in New Zealand. We also investigated differences among farmers and the wider community in the antecedents of engagement, such as their involvement and goal intentions with respect to conserving biodiversity. We found that farmers and the wider community were similar in their involvement, cognitive engagement, and affective engagement with conserving biodiversity. Both had similar attitudes towards, and goal intentions regarding, conserving biodiversity, but they differed in their behavioral engagement, their behavior towards biodiversity. We found that farmers were more (not less) behaviorally engaged than the wider community. We concluded that the difference between farmers and the wider community in their behavioral engagement with protecting biodiversity was the product of differences in opportunities and opportunity costs related to such behavior. This has implications for the wider community's perception of farmers' motivations and its judgments about what constitutes “good” farming practice from an environmental perspective.
{"title":"Engagement With Biodiversity: Are Farmers Different From the Wider Community?","authors":"Geoff Kaine, Vic Wright","doi":"10.1111/ruso.70020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.70020","url":null,"abstract":"The damaging effects agriculture has on the environment have resulted, increasingly, in conflict between the urban community and farmers. The extent to which this conflict might be resolved depends, in part, on whether farmers and the wider community differ in their degree of concern for the environment. We measured the engagement of farmers and the wider community with biodiversity in New Zealand. We also investigated differences among farmers and the wider community in the antecedents of engagement, such as their involvement and goal intentions with respect to conserving biodiversity. We found that farmers and the wider community were similar in their involvement, cognitive engagement, and affective engagement with conserving biodiversity. Both had similar attitudes towards, and goal intentions regarding, conserving biodiversity, but they differed in their behavioral engagement, their behavior towards biodiversity. We found that farmers were more (not less) behaviorally engaged than the wider community. We concluded that the difference between farmers and the wider community in their behavioral engagement with protecting biodiversity was the product of differences in opportunities and opportunity costs related to such behavior. This has implications for the wider community's perception of farmers' motivations and its judgments about what constitutes “good” farming practice from an environmental perspective.","PeriodicalId":47924,"journal":{"name":"RURAL SOCIOLOGY","volume":"103 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145003148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trailer Park America: Reimagining Working‐Class Communities. By LeontinaHormel, New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey; London: Rutgers University Press, 2023. 284 pp. $37.95 (hardback). ISBN: 1‐978‐82947‐7.","authors":"Robert D. Francis","doi":"10.1111/ruso.70021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.70021","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47924,"journal":{"name":"RURAL SOCIOLOGY","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144995382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sociological research has begun to examine how individuals and communities stabilize, recover, and rebuild post‐disaster, highlighting the importance of housing through the broader recovery process, which often takes multiple years. Wildfire impacts and losses have been increasingly studied by sociologists, but the recovery process has not been well examined in the rural context. This article builds on the nexus of housing, rural, and disaster recovery scholarship to explore the use of recreational vehicles (RVs) as an informal, post‐disaster housing strategy. Using qualitative research conducted with a rural community in Oregon post‐wildfire, we explain why residents choose RVs and what the experience is like for them. Although RV living is affordable and bolsters long‐time place‐based and RV community connections, it also exacerbates pre‐fire vulnerabilities and creates new sources of hardship and stress. RVs may function as a quick coping strategy for post‐disaster housing and reflect rural self‐reliance and community resilience, but we argue they are also a source of future disaster vulnerability that requires institutional intervention.
{"title":"“Long‐Term Temporary” Disaster Recovery Housing: Living in RVs Post‐Wildfire","authors":"Haisu Huang, Claire W. Herbert","doi":"10.1111/ruso.70019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.70019","url":null,"abstract":"Sociological research has begun to examine how individuals and communities stabilize, recover, and rebuild post‐disaster, highlighting the importance of housing through the broader recovery process, which often takes multiple years. Wildfire impacts and losses have been increasingly studied by sociologists, but the recovery process has not been well examined in the rural context. This article builds on the nexus of housing, rural, and disaster recovery scholarship to explore the use of recreational vehicles (RVs) as an informal, post‐disaster housing strategy. Using qualitative research conducted with a rural community in Oregon post‐wildfire, we explain why residents choose RVs and what the experience is like for them. Although RV living is affordable and bolsters long‐time place‐based and RV community connections, it also exacerbates pre‐fire vulnerabilities and creates new sources of hardship and stress. RVs may function as a quick coping strategy for post‐disaster housing and reflect rural self‐reliance and community resilience, but we argue they are also a source of future disaster vulnerability that requires institutional intervention.","PeriodicalId":47924,"journal":{"name":"RURAL SOCIOLOGY","volume":"10 12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144930319","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Telehealth may help ameliorate rural healthcare shortages and related negative health outcomes for rural populations in the United States. However, telehealth utilization has been lower among rural than urban populations. Patient experiences are an essential determinant of healthcare utilization and effectiveness. To inform efforts to address disparities in telehealth utilization, we sought a situated, contextual understanding of patient experiences with telehealth among rural‐dwelling adults in California. We used Interpretive Phenomenology qualitative methods. In‐depth semi‐structured interviews explored rural life contexts, rural healthcare experiences, and valuations of telehealth among 16 rural‐dwelling adults who used telehealth at a distant urban medical center. Themes of scarcity and fragmented care characterized participants' rural healthcare experiences. Participants placed high value on their rural settings, despite limitations imposed by rural living. Informed by these contexts, participants offered highly positive assessments of telehealth and its utility for rural patients. Telehealth emerged as a positive tool for participants to support healthcare access and a rural way of life. However, findings point to a need to explore whether telehealth may contribute to rural healthcare bypass behaviors. Ongoing research is also needed to understand the telehealth experiences and preferences of underserved and minoritized rural populations.
{"title":"Rural Life, Rural Healthcare, and Telehealth: An Interpretive Phenomenology Study","authors":"Meghan Rowe Ferrara, Susan A. Chapman","doi":"10.1111/ruso.70016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.70016","url":null,"abstract":"Telehealth may help ameliorate rural healthcare shortages and related negative health outcomes for rural populations in the United States. However, telehealth utilization has been lower among rural than urban populations. Patient experiences are an essential determinant of healthcare utilization and effectiveness. To inform efforts to address disparities in telehealth utilization, we sought a situated, contextual understanding of patient experiences with telehealth among rural‐dwelling adults in California. We used Interpretive Phenomenology qualitative methods. In‐depth semi‐structured interviews explored rural life contexts, rural healthcare experiences, and valuations of telehealth among 16 rural‐dwelling adults who used telehealth at a distant urban medical center. Themes of scarcity and fragmented care characterized participants' rural healthcare experiences. Participants placed high value on their rural settings, despite limitations imposed by rural living. Informed by these contexts, participants offered highly positive assessments of telehealth and its utility for rural patients. Telehealth emerged as a positive tool for participants to support healthcare access and a rural way of life. However, findings point to a need to explore whether telehealth may contribute to rural healthcare bypass behaviors. Ongoing research is also needed to understand the telehealth experiences and preferences of underserved and minoritized rural populations.","PeriodicalId":47924,"journal":{"name":"RURAL SOCIOLOGY","volume":"116 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144915490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reviving Rural America: Toward Policies for Resilience. By AnnM. Eisenberg, Cambridge University Press, 2024. 224 pp. $34.99 (paperback). ISBN: 978‐1‐10‐898440‐9","authors":"Jessica A. Shoemaker","doi":"10.1111/ruso.70018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.70018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47924,"journal":{"name":"RURAL SOCIOLOGY","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144910578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In rural development research, social capital (SC) complements the causal gap between the endowment of resources and other capital in a community and the performance of collective actions, such as common‐pool resource management. However, the concept of SC is ambiguous and its measurement is controversial. This study focuses on rural SC and attempts to measure it inductively using data from 994 Japanese communities related to various collective actions (22 types), rather than deductively piling up the detailed components of SC, as in prior studies. In particular, we evaluate the impact of Japan's Multifunctional Payment System (MPS)—a rural development policy designed to support collective agricultural activities such as the maintenance of farm roads and irrigation facilities—on the accumulation of SC. To this end, we employ hierarchical latent variable models to capture the multidimensional and hierarchical structure of SC, and spatial regression models to assess the policy's causal impacts on SC accumulation while considering spatial heterogeneity. The results show that SC has spatial heterogeneity and a hierarchical structure, depending on the internal (bonding‐type) and external (bridging‐type) components, as well as on the difference between general activities and collective agricultural actions. The SC accumulation is strongly correlated with traditional and agriculture‐related activities. Furthermore, policies increase comprehensive SC by approximately 20% but are more effective for internal SC than for external SC. These results suggest the need for policy options such as agglomeration bonuses when expanding the range of collective actions. They also imply that soft projects to strengthen linkages between rural and urban residents (bridging‐type SC) will be important in the future. Other findings indicate that the reinforcement of agricultural corporations and educational facilities are also effective in accumulating SC.
{"title":"The Impact of Rural Development Policy on Social Capital: Measurement, Heterogeneity, and Implications for Collective Action","authors":"Shinichi Kitano","doi":"10.1111/ruso.70014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.70014","url":null,"abstract":"In rural development research, social capital (SC) complements the causal gap between the endowment of resources and other capital in a community and the performance of collective actions, such as common‐pool resource management. However, the concept of SC is ambiguous and its measurement is controversial. This study focuses on rural SC and attempts to measure it inductively using data from 994 Japanese communities related to various collective actions (22 types), rather than deductively piling up the detailed components of SC, as in prior studies. In particular, we evaluate the impact of Japan's Multifunctional Payment System (MPS)—a rural development policy designed to support collective agricultural activities such as the maintenance of farm roads and irrigation facilities—on the accumulation of SC. To this end, we employ hierarchical latent variable models to capture the multidimensional and hierarchical structure of SC, and spatial regression models to assess the policy's causal impacts on SC accumulation while considering spatial heterogeneity. The results show that SC has spatial heterogeneity and a hierarchical structure, depending on the internal (bonding‐type) and external (bridging‐type) components, as well as on the difference between general activities and collective agricultural actions. The SC accumulation is strongly correlated with traditional and agriculture‐related activities. Furthermore, policies increase comprehensive SC by approximately 20% but are more effective for internal SC than for external SC. These results suggest the need for policy options such as agglomeration bonuses when expanding the range of collective actions. They also imply that soft projects to strengthen linkages between rural and urban residents (bridging‐type SC) will be important in the future. Other findings indicate that the reinforcement of agricultural corporations and educational facilities are also effective in accumulating SC.","PeriodicalId":47924,"journal":{"name":"RURAL SOCIOLOGY","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144899024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Elena Maria Pojman, Florence Becot, Zuzana Bednarik, Carrie Henning‐Smith
Despite caregiving making up a considerable portion of how individuals and governments spend their time and money, its impacts on caregivers' well‐being are not well understood. In this article, we identify the various manifestations of caregiver well‐being, test rural–suburban–urban differences, and explore the role of state‐level family policy. Drawing on responses from 4620 caregivers of adults and children to the STAT Caregiving surveys from the North Central and Northeast Regions of the United States, we use latent‐class analysis to develop a caregiver well‐being typology. We identify three latent classes of caregiver well‐being: high, medium, and low, and describe the composition of each class. Next, we use multinomial logistic regression to test differences between rural, suburban, and urban caregivers in their probability of being in each well‐being class, while accounting for individual‐level characteristics and the state‐level context of care infrastructure. We find that rural and suburban caregivers are overrepresented among the low and medium well‐being classes and underrepresented among the high well‐being class relative to their urban counterparts. Additionally, caregivers' own characteristics vary more across well‐being than does the state‐level family policy context. Our findings speak to the importance of robust family care policies that are attuned to differences in social and built infrastructure across rural, suburban, and urban residence.
{"title":"Does Caregiver Well‐Being Differ by Rurality and State Policy Environment? Identifying a Well‐Being Typology for Rural, Suburban, and Urban Caregivers","authors":"Elena Maria Pojman, Florence Becot, Zuzana Bednarik, Carrie Henning‐Smith","doi":"10.1111/ruso.70015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.70015","url":null,"abstract":"Despite caregiving making up a considerable portion of how individuals and governments spend their time and money, its impacts on caregivers' well‐being are not well understood. In this article, we identify the various manifestations of caregiver well‐being, test rural–suburban–urban differences, and explore the role of state‐level family policy. Drawing on responses from 4620 caregivers of adults and children to the STAT Caregiving surveys from the North Central and Northeast Regions of the United States, we use latent‐class analysis to develop a caregiver well‐being typology. We identify three latent classes of caregiver well‐being: high, medium, and low, and describe the composition of each class. Next, we use multinomial logistic regression to test differences between rural, suburban, and urban caregivers in their probability of being in each well‐being class, while accounting for individual‐level characteristics and the state‐level context of care infrastructure. We find that rural and suburban caregivers are overrepresented among the low and medium well‐being classes and underrepresented among the high well‐being class relative to their urban counterparts. Additionally, caregivers' own characteristics vary more across well‐being than does the state‐level family policy context. Our findings speak to the importance of robust family care policies that are attuned to differences in social and built infrastructure across rural, suburban, and urban residence.","PeriodicalId":47924,"journal":{"name":"RURAL SOCIOLOGY","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144899019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kristen Olson, Angelica Phillips, Jolene D. Smyth, Rachel Stenger
The COVID‐19 pandemic rapidly shifted traditionally in‐person interactions to online. Because rural residents historically have lower rates of broadband internet access, they may have been less likely to conduct activities online than their urban counterparts, reflecting geographic digital inequalities. We examine whether residents of rural areas are less likely than residents of urban areas to have internet access, conduct various activities online, and use videoconferencing software during the COVID‐19 pandemic using a probability survey of Nebraskans conducted in late 2020. We find that rural residents were less likely to have broadband internet access, a pattern that persists after accounting for characteristics of the residents. We also find that rural residents were less likely than their more urban counterparts to order food and groceries online, to stream movies or TV, or to use video conferencing for work and medical care, reflecting likely infrastructure differences in rural areas. Rural residents were also less likely to engage in online education activities, play games online, use social media, or use video conferencing to stay in touch with friends and family, but these geographic differences were explained by resident characteristics, suggesting that these differences in behaviors may be due to preference rather than lacking infrastructure.
{"title":"The Urban–Rural Digital Divide in Internet Access and Online Activities During the COVID‐19 Pandemic","authors":"Kristen Olson, Angelica Phillips, Jolene D. Smyth, Rachel Stenger","doi":"10.1111/ruso.70012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.70012","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID‐19 pandemic rapidly shifted traditionally in‐person interactions to online. Because rural residents historically have lower rates of broadband internet access, they may have been less likely to conduct activities online than their urban counterparts, reflecting geographic digital inequalities. We examine whether residents of rural areas are less likely than residents of urban areas to have internet access, conduct various activities online, and use videoconferencing software during the COVID‐19 pandemic using a probability survey of Nebraskans conducted in late 2020. We find that rural residents were less likely to have broadband internet access, a pattern that persists after accounting for characteristics of the residents. We also find that rural residents were less likely than their more urban counterparts to order food and groceries online, to stream movies or TV, or to use video conferencing for work and medical care, reflecting likely infrastructure differences in rural areas. Rural residents were also less likely to engage in online education activities, play games online, use social media, or use video conferencing to stay in touch with friends and family, but these geographic differences were explained by resident characteristics, suggesting that these differences in behaviors may be due to preference rather than lacking infrastructure.","PeriodicalId":47924,"journal":{"name":"RURAL SOCIOLOGY","volume":"66 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144577682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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