FARM STRUCTURE, INDUSTRY STRUCTURE AND SOCIOECONOMIC CONDITIONS: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY IN ECONOMY AND SOCIETY (AGRICULTURE, COUNTY

The relationship between economy and society has long concerned sociologists. In examining this issue, however, sociologists have tended to treat farming and nonfarm industry as mutually independent economic sectors, neglecting the interrelationships, as well as the larger social forces shaping both sectors. Further, when analyzing the impact of economy on society, studies have typically not assessed the joint impact of industry and farming. This study addresses these discontinuities in the literature by analyzing (1) the effects of farm and industrial structure on socioeconomic conditions, (2) the effects of socioeconomic conditions on farm structure, and (3) the relationships between farm and industry structure. The political economy perspective, as articulated in industrial sociology and in the sociology of agriculture, provides the conceptual basis for the farm and industry structures analyzed.;The empirical analysis is longitudinal, based on data for nearly all (3037) continental United States counties for the 1970 and 1980 periods.;The findings support only some of the major hypotheses. As hypothesized, counties with a greater extent of the larger family farming pattern had consistently higher socioeconomic conditions. The hypothesis that counties higher on the corporate/commercial pattern would have lower socioeconomic conditions received partial support. In contrast to the hypothesis, counties higher on smaller family farming had lower conditions. Counties with higher core industrial employment generally had higher conditions, while for state employment this hypothesis was only partially supported. There was little support for a negative relationship between peripheral employment and socioeconomic conditions.;Findings from exploratory hypothesis testing indicated that counties with higher state employment in 1970 were higher on 1978 smaller and larger family farming patterns. County socioeconomic conditions tended to be positively related to larger family farming over time. Counties higher on larger family farming had more core and less peripheral employment over time, indicating that this pattern not only leads to better socioeconomic conditions but also to the type of employment most conducive to those conditions.