New poll finds about half of rural young people feel job market pressures in their hometowns

A new Gallup-Walton Family Foundation survey released Wednesday shows that nearly half of rural Generation Z Americans feel they can’t find fulfilling work in their communities and are considering moving.

Rural Gen-Zers are also nearly 20 percentage points more likely to feel that way than their urban brethren.

Urban young people also have a higher confidence in their ability to land crucial internships out of school, and parents of rural youths are similarly concerned about quality-of-life issues for their grown children and in their ability to accomplish their goals.

Forty-nine percent of Gen Zers believe they can find a worthy job at home. Thirty-eight percent say they’re confident in their internship searches.

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The pressures of the contemporary occupational landscape are also leading 77% of Gen Z adults to seek to move away from their hometowns, if they are able.

But that feeling is met with countervailing sentiment against leaving home.

More than half of urban Gen Zers say they are comfortable relocating out of state or even outside the U.S., while about half in rural areas prefer to entertain moving to another place within their state, at most.

About two-fifths would consider moving out of state and only a few percent would think to leave the U.S. for a job.

“The desire to stay closer to home contrasts with those in urban areas who are more likely to say they would like to leave their state (54%), or even the country (15%),” the poll found.

“Career and education opportunities strongly influence young people’s decisions to relocate, but rural Gen Zers often face limited access compared to their urban peers,” said Stephanie Marken, senior partner for U.S. research at Gallup. 

“Expanding access to job training, career opportunities and higher education in rural areas could help more young people stay connected to their communities while pursuing their goals.”

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Only one-fifth of adult Gen Z Americans who have moved away from their home areas mentioned the ability to live financially comfortably.

Many, however, still love their hometowns despite a changing job landscape in recent years and decades.

The panel was conducted in November, the week of the presidential election.

Pollsters sampled 3,963 people ranging in age from 12 to 27 in all 50 states plus Washington, D.C.

They were randomly selected using an address-based methodology, but the polling firm also said it uses random-digit telephone dialing to cover both landlines and cellphones.

The margin of error was +/- 2.3 percentage points overall. A total of 382 respondents were in rural areas with a 7.3 percentage point margin, and 2,969 were from urban areas with a 2.7 percentage point margin of error.

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Despite facing fewer job and education opportunities, rural Gen Zers remain deeply connected to their communities, with their desire to move only slightly numerically higher than their urban peers (82% vs. 78%).

The co-leader of the poll, the Walton Family Foundation, was launched by late Walmart founder Samuel Walton and his wife, Helen.

The foundation seeks to improve the U.S. education system, communities and waterways, particularly in northwest Arkansas, where the family and mega-store chain are both based.