Hope and Geographic Mobility
The next chapter of the new edited volume is titled “The Geography of Desperation in America: Labor Force Participation, Mobility, Place, and Well-Being” Contributors Carol Graham and Sérgio Pinto describe the rise of desperation and associate premature deaths and link it to lower geographical mobility, especially for less than college-educated whites. Despite worse objective conditions, Black and Hispanic respondents reported more hope for the future.
Using information from the Gallup World Poll, they found that counties with a higher percentage of respondents still in their childhood census tracts have poorer health and little hope. Those in counties with higher percentages of adults in their parents’ homes have even worse well-being and health. In addition, counties with higher poverty levels, obesity, smoking, deaths of despair, non-Hispanic whites, and individuals on disability were the same places where Trump won by a wide margin in 2016.
These findings also show that deaths of despair are more concentrated within uneducated white populations, with people of color having much lower rates. People of color are also less likely to report depression or commit suicide, though this difference likely reflects cultural norms and resilience.
“The deepest desperation is among cohorts in the white working class who previously had stable, middle-class lives. In contrast, Black and Hispanics retain higher levels of well-being, especially hope.”
Unskilled, unemployed, white, middle-aged men report the most despair. The authors link this to the decline in geographic mobility. People don’t or can’t move to where better opportunities exist. Reasons include Housing costs, skills mismatch, the 2008 financial crisis, and lack of available low-skilled jobs.
The authors conclude that restoring hope to the cohorts of immobile white people, who often live where manufacturing jobs used to be abundant, is important for improving national well-being and the economy. Connecting workers with opportunities is essential, and the rate of deaths of despair is alarming. I think more research is needed when examining the differences in reporting between white and non-white people.
While this paper touches on it, I think cultural norms, sensitivity, and entitlement could play a large role in why white men report so much more despair. In addition, because all of this information is self-reported, two people in the same position could report very different levels of well-being and optimism due to many different factors. While we should not leave any populations behind when trying to construct a better future, I do think it would be interesting to examine why white people feel worse on average despite having objectively better conditions overall.
About the Author
Stella Hudson is a Graduate Assistant with the Baha’i Chair for World Peace. She graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2021 with a B.A. in English. She will graduate from the University of Maryland with her MLIS in spring 2023.