African American Couples in Rural Contexts

Abstract

African American families are very much a part of rural hard times. Recent statistics showed that more than one-half of all rural African Americans and two-thirds of poor rural African Americans live in high-poverty counties, mostly in the South. Shifts in rural employment opportunities have been accompanied by shifts in family structure. This chapter will present a summary of findings from a large-scale longitudinal study of nonurban African American families designed to focus on factors that influence the relationships between parents, given the importance of parental relationships for the outcomes of children. After a brief summary of the study's goals and methods, findings will be presented regarding the impact of adverse neighborhood characteristics, financial stressors, and racial discrimination on the quality and stability of African American couples' relationships. Findings will also be presented that highlight the benefits for couples of key resource variables and the mechanisms through which these resources affect outcomes. Finally, we briefly present some methodological challenges to conducting research on this population and provide recommendations for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)