Does Economic Vulnerability Depend On Place Of Residence? Asset Poverty Across the Rural-Urban Continuum

This paper uses Panel Study of Income Dynamics data for 1989, 1994, and 1999 to examine why some U.S. households are asset poor; that is, why households have insufficient resources to invest in their future or to sustain household members at a basic level during times of economic disruption. The study contributes to an improved understanding of asset poverty’s correlates by examining the influence of place of residence; the extant literature has focused on individuallevel explanations. We estimate a random-effects logistic model of the probability that an individual is asset poor at a given point in time as a function of household-level (e.g. age, gender, race of the household head and family structure) and place-level (regional and rural-urban continuum) variables. The central finding of the paper is that place of residence is an important determinant of asset poverty, above and beyond the influence of household characteristics. We find that living in a central metropolitan county and in a nonmetropolitan area is associated with a higher risk of being asset poor, all else being equal. Implications for future research are discussed.