ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the current status of the Iowa families by describing their economic variations and links to the older generation. Reduced expenditures on household utilities, food, and medical care represent a painful decline in living conditions, which increase the risk of depressed feelings and demoralization, at least over the short term. The chapter focuses on the socioeconomic strategies and their relation to income-generating efforts, and then explores some key antecedents, such as indebtedness and unstable work. Most of the Iowa families in 1989 had personal links to the farm, and thus felt close to the agricultural crisis. The felt economic strains of families and their adaptations depend on the local economy, in farm and nonfarm communities alike. Hard-pressed families were trying to make ends meet through loans and borrowings, through the reduction of consumption, and through the generation of additional income, as in the wife's employment and that of the husband's second job.
