ABSTRACT
The harsher reality of rural family life is that economic conditions have forced millions of families to leave agriculture. Nonmetropolitan families, like other families, demonstrate rising rates of divorce, family violence, and adolescent pregnancies. Scholars, social service providers, and policy makers must begin to understand and respond to families in rural society who are experiencing significant internal changes while simultaneously adapting to a remarkably altered rural America. During the 1970s, social scientists documented many important structural changes that had occurred in rural families, including a rising number of single-parent families, increased divorces, smaller family sizes, and more dual-employment families. American families are increasingly characterized by a plurality of lifestyles and the diversity is also reflected in families in rural society. In order to develop public policy that is supportive of family living, it is necessary to understand the relationships between rural families and the major institutions.
