Good as gone: narratives of rural youth who intend to leave their communities

ABSTRACT Youth out-migration is an issue for rural communities. When youth leave their communities, rural areas face an aging workforce, diminished social capital, and injured local economy. Some youth leave the community to pursue college or careers with the intent to return, and some return even though they had no intentions to when they left. Decisions to migrate may be heavily influenced by the gendered nature of rural life and the imbalance of expectations around family, career, and caretaking experienced by women. Informed by feminist theory, this qualitative research explores structural and cultural forces that motivate rural young women to out-migrate. It addresses implications of rural youth out-migration for individual trajectories, such as career options or relationship to family, and community trajectories, such as the loss of the new workforce. Participants identified family, non-familial relationships, boredom, small-town politics, community, market, and negative experiences as motivations to leave or return.