Sustenance Differentiation and Population Redistribution

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which sustenance differentiationan important dimension of the division of labor-influences the redistribution of the population through net migration in the nonmetropolitan counties of the United States during the 1960s. An ecological explanation of this type is shown to be most viable, even when controls for a number of competing explanations are introduced. The evidence provided in this paper supports the longstanding contention of human ecologists about the influence of sustenance on population redistribution. For many years, human ecologists have contended that sustenance plays an important part in change (Gibbs and Martin, b; Hawley). A population will adjust its numbers to achieve a balance or equilibrium between its overall size and chances. One of the important mechanisms for adjustment is the process of migration. The general relationship between sustenance and population change is an important one if only because demographic structure [in this particular case, population size] contains the possibilities and sets the limits of organized group life (Hawley, 78). Recently, human ecologists have subjected this relationship to empirical test. In an analysis of black migration from 253 southern cottonbelt counties, Sly has found that migration may be viewed as a direct demographic response to differences in sustenance organization (615). Other investigators have found evidence of a clear, though complex, relationship between various constellations of sustenance activities and population change in the nonmetropolitan counties of the United States (Frisbie and Poston, a, b). This paper will examine yet another aspect of sustenance organization, its degree of differentiation, and will ascertain the extent to which it influences the redistribution of the population through net migration. Since sustenance differentiation is one dimension of the broader ecological concept of the division of labor, this paper may also be seen as contributing to a further understanding of the effects of the division of labor.