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Show Rural Towns Still Losing Mouth to the Cities t n's graduation day at a . iuh high school. The com-s com-s mencenwnt speaker tolls of ' the great contributions those graduate will be making to society in the years ahead. 1 But the problem is many will not be making those contribu-lions contribu-lions in their home commun- - i'T- , i In Utah 51 percent of the , students from rural areas '.' intend to migrate from their ": home community; 33 percent of non-rural youths also plan ? to leave. ! Although the decline of 5 population in Utah's rural areas has ceased, it is not. as many believe, because their . youth intend to stay. Nor is it because other young adults are moving into ? the area. For every 100 youths who leave a rural " ' community, only seven non-,? non-,? rural youths intend to move '; ' there. Why? They foel it is to their economic advantage to live outside a rural area. Those facts wore uncovered by the Utah State University Sociology Department in cooperation co-operation with the Utah State Hoard of Education. A questionnaire ques-tionnaire surveyed 2,500 Utah high school seniors in 1975 to identify their Intentions to migrate. "We found that rural communities com-munities are losing their youth at a greater rate than non-rural communities. But rural youths are more likely to stay somewhere in Utah. Fifteen percent of the non-rural non-rural graduates intend to leave the state whereas only 10 percent of the rural graduates gradu-ates indicate such a preference," prefer-ence," explains Michael Ton-ey, Ton-ey, USU sociologist in charge of the study. He was assisted by Yum Kim and William St inner. "Since the first U.S. census in 1790, to 1970. rural communities com-munities have lost population. But we have recently seen a reversal in this trend which was totally unsuspected. Since 1970, rural areas in the U.S. are among the fastest growing places," Toney says. This general trend is true in Utah too. Between 1970 and 1975, no county in Utah lost population whereas 13 of the 14 rural counties had lost population between 1960 and 1970. Who is causing this growth? Since youth had contributed greatly to the out-migration in the past, some thought the repopulation of rural areas might be due to youth remaining remain-ing in the rural areas. According Accord-ing to Toney 's study, this is not true. Why axe youth intending to migrate? The overriding factor fac-tor among rural, urban and metropolitan students was economics. Statistics from the study show that, although social and family relations might have some influence on non-rural youths, they did not hold rural youths to their community in any significant numbers. "It didn't matter if rural youths felt a part of the community, had lived there long or what type of relationship relation-ship they had with their parents. Rural youths were more apt to migrate. They may have wanted to stay, but felt they could not," Toney says. The problem of out-migration of youth is more acute in the rural areas than non-rural because statistics show these youths are not being replaced by other young people entering enter-ing the area. The result is rural areas have an unbalanced unbalanc-ed age structure since there is an absence of a substantial number of young adults. "The trade-off between rural, urban and metropolitan sectors of the state is very unfavorable for the rural areas. Of those 758 graduates who said they intend to spend most of their lives out of their home communities, only three percent intended to live in a rural area of Utah. The non-rural non-rural areas will receive 62 percent of the migrants and other states about 35 percent," per-cent," Toney says. "Rural areas still seem to be troubled by a heavy outflow of their youth. The out-migration of youth who are very satisfied with nearly every aspect of their personal and social life in the rural area reflects the lack of economic 0 opportunity. While non-rural youth often have a choice of jobs in their home community and stay, the rural youth seldom has the choice." Toney points out another problem from rural areas. "Out-migration of the educated edu-cated youth often leaves behind be-hind a population that is less and less able to cope with the already difficult economic con- ditions. If the effort to find a F better economic situation by migrating shows, as many suspect, migrants to be more highly motivated than those that remain, then many of the youth who remain behind may be less vigorous and adventurous adven-turous than those who leave," Toney says. "In any case, this study indicates that even with rural communities growing, they still face the old problem of holding their own youth or attracting new youth," he says. "There are many reasons we study migration. Many sociologists believe migration is one of the most important agents in causing social change. When we look at the times in human history when great amounts of social change have taken place, we also find great amounts of migration," Toney says. "It is through migration a proper distribution of population popula-tion with respect to employment employ-ment opportunities and resources re-sources is achieved. Others look at contemporary society and correlate the amount and rate of change with the amount of migration. A society soci-ety in which there is no migration would become stagnant. stag-nant. This is not necessarily bad. It just means the society is frozen. Most researchers believe the healthiest communities com-munities have a significant proportion of non-migrants to provide stability and a substantial sub-stantial number of migrants to contribute innovations and change," he says. But, u you consider youth the rejuvenating force of the community, their exodus could mean a perpetuation of negative things within the community. Many think youth might be the most important force in creating social change. Therefore, rural communities com-munities that are losing their youth are, in a sense, losing one of their most valuable resources," Toney says. |