Hispanic Population Growth and Labor Force Reception in New Rural Destinations of the United States

William A. Kandel, U.S. Department of Agriculture (DOA)
Robert Gibbs, U.S. Department of Agriculture (DOA)

Substantial rural Hispanic population growth in the past two decades raises questions about linkages with rural economic structural change and patterns of economic and social incorporation of the Hispanic population into rural communities. This analysis examines changes in the “economic context of reception” for Hispanic residents in nonmetropolitan counties between the two relatively similar business cycles of 1991-93 and 2001-2003. We employ restricted CPS Earnings Files data that contain county identifiers and link them to Census and other county-level data. We analyze how economic and labor market conditions in recent Hispanic nonmetro destinations in the Midwest and the Southeast differ from those of established Hispanic nonmetro settlement areas in the Southwest and how these conditions have changed since 1990. We use multivariate regression to estimate their impacts on the likelihood of Hispanic employment and logged wages in both periods.