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Social Change in Shale O&G Communities

Shepard, Michael Lynn
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0567-4584
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1620327308528408

Abstract Details

2021, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Human Ecology: Human Development and Family Science.
The changing landscape of energy extraction in the United States has important implications for demographic outcomes, such as family formation behaviors and human capital accumulation. As the shale oil and gas (O&G) industry has grown over the last two decades, it has exposed new communities to the boom-bust cycles inherent within energy extraction areas. During the economically prosperous boom times, individuals may be drawn to an area as employment and income increases, which could influence the human capital levels within a community. Similarly, increased economic resources brought through O&G development may encourage marital behavior and influence other family formation outcomes, such as divorce and cohabitation. Conversely, an O&G bust could drive away human capital and destabilize marriages and families as employment and income decrease. This dissertation study enhances scholarship on family formation behaviors in extraction communities during the initial O&G boom and bust, which occurred from 2007-2018. Further, this study also examines migration of human capital during these economic cycles to see if the industry is drawing or decreasing individuals with more educational attainment. I utilize Economic Modeling Specialists International (EMSI) data to measure O&G employment, which allows me to separate shale extraction employment from other sources of mining employment to understand how this industry is influencing the aforementioned behaviors. I also utilize restricted American Community Survey (ACS) data for many family formation, migration, and educational attainment outcomes. The restricted ACS sample provides access to data for individuals in nonmetropolitan counties, which is severely limited in the publicly available datasets. As shale O&G development disproportionately occurs and influences nonmetropolitan counties, these data will be key to answering several research questions. In Chapter 1, I introduce the shale O&G industry, as well as trends in family formation behaviors, migration, and human capital accumulation and theoretical frameworks with which this paper will follow. In Chapter 2, I highlight county-level family formation trends in a subset of O&G states for both the boom and bust period. In Chapter 3, I utilize individual-level data to determine how O&G employment share influences the decision to transition to marriage in a subset of O&G states. In Chapter 4, I assess how the O&G industry is influencing the migration of human capital during the boom and bust. In Chapter 5, I close with a discussion about the broad conclusions and implications of this research for the study of demographic outcomes in O&G communities.
Anastasia Snyder (Advisor)
Michael Betz (Advisor)
Arya Ansari (Committee Member)
185 p.
Demographics; Demography; Social Research; Sociology
Resource extraction; human capital; marriage; divorce; cohabitation; shale; fracking; oil and gas

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Shepard, M. L. (2021). Social Change in Shale O&G Communities [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1620327308528408

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Shepard, Michael. Social Change in Shale O&G Communities. 2021. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1620327308528408.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Shepard, Michael. "Social Change in Shale O&G Communities." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1620327308528408

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1620327308528408
91
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.