Publications
November 16, 2023
In this brief, Senior Demographer Kenneth Johnson reports that nonmetropolitan (rural) America gained population between April of 2020 and July of 2022. In the preceding decade, rural areas lost population, both because more people left rural areas than moved to them and because births just minimally exceeded deaths.
March 31, 2023
In this brief, Senior Demographer Kenneth Johnson reports that, according to recent Census Bureau estimates, the U.S. population has grown at the slowest rate in history in the past two years due to the impact of Covid.
May 25, 2022
In this brief, authors Kenneth Johnson and Daniel Lichter report that although population declines were widespread between 2010 and 2020, rural America became more racially and ethnically diverse.
February 22, 2022
In this brief Carsey Senior Demographer Kenneth Johnson examines rural demographic trends between 2010 and 2020 using data from the 2020 Census. With fewer births, more deaths, and more people leaving than moving in, rural America experienced an overall population loss for the first time in history.
November 11, 2020
Joseph Biden won the 2020 presidential election because Democratic support increased across the entire rural–urban continuum. The incremental gains at each point along the continuum were modest, but in a tightly contested election small changes in the vote matter.
October 20, 2020
Political commentary often divides the nation into two partisan zones, urban and rural, but new analysis demonstrates that the rural–urban gradient is a continuum, not a dichotomy. In this study of the 2018 congressional midterms, authors Kenneth Johnson and Dante Scala confirm their earlier analysis of the 2016 presidential election and demonstrate how voting patterns and political attitudes...
September 8, 2020
In this brief, authors Kenneth Johnson and Daniel Lichter summarize their peer reviewed article in Demography that provides cautionary lessons regarding the commonplace narrative of widespread rural decline and urban growth.
August 27, 2020
In this brief, author Kenneth Johnson discusses the likely influence that the age structure and the incidence of pre-existing health conditions have on the risks of those exposed to COVID-19 in rural and urban counties in the United States.
July 28, 2020
In this brief, author Aysha Bodenhamer describes how prevention failures in the coal mining industry have resulted in the resurgence of black lung disease. Caused by the chronic inhalation of coal and silica dust, black lung is progressive, incurable, life-altering, and fatal. Despite it being a preventable disease, black lung is resurgent among coal miners in Kentucky, Virginia, and West...
April 10, 2020
In this brief, author Kenneth Johnson estimates the influence that the local age structure has on coronavirus death rates among those exposed to it in rural and urban counties in the United States.