Population Growth in Rural Missouri Counties in the 1990s: Yet Another Turnaround

Abstract

Nonmetropolitan counties in Missouri, similar to their national counterparts, have experienced alternating decades of rapid and slower growth since the I970s. A simple reduced form model is used to identify the factors that explain population growth in rural Missouri counties. As found by earlier researchers, such factors as agricultural employment, income, city size, population density, race, retirement attraction and the existence of a state college continue to influence population growth in rural counties in Missouri. The variables identified are likely to contribute to continued growth in nonmetropolitan counties in the present decade. (R 11)