Friday, March 29, 2024

Lifestyle sells rural work

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Rural employers need to provide a good lifestyle and demonstrate a path exists for career advancement to attract young people to the countryside, Victoria University researcher Dr Michael Sloan has found.
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Sloan surveyed 24,000 people as part of his thesis and found people moving from urban areas to the country had less social life satisfaction after the move but had greater outdoor satisfaction with the man-made and natural environments.

He spent three years comparing people’s expectations of moving to urban and rural areas with the reality after the move.

Though 80% of people were satisfied with their moves overall, those who were not were likely to move again, often within three months.

But most people were prepared to make compromises – losing something in one facet for gains in another.

Whether the reduced social life satisfaction after moves to the country occurred because people were not as open and friendly as might be expected was unclear.

Sloan’s experience of walking in rural areas near his Wellington home was that in the countryside people waved more and slowed down more when they saw him.

He suggested it was more likely the characteristics of rural areas made it harder to maintain contacts and there were fewer informal and unplanned meetings with friends.

In urban areas there were likely to be more frequent casual ties but they were likely to involve weaker friendships than in rural areas.

People might also have a romanticised notion of what moving to the country would be like, he said.

In rural areas people would not bump into each other as often, it was harder to go to a bar and there were not the same transport options for getting home as in urban areas.

On the other hand, moving from rural to urban doesn’t increase social satisfaction, suggesting the rural geography is the factor that makes the difference.

Technology also plays a role, because the internet is not as efficient in rural areas and there are rural areas with no cellphone coverage, so people are not as connected.

Sloan said there was an idea a counter-urbanisation culture was involved with people moving out of urban areas to get away from the rat race to enjoy a slower pace of life and the natural environment.

The research found young people were moving to country areas for jobs but just as many were leaving rural areas for education, training, and urban jobs.

However, Sloan said rural employers wanting to attract young workers needed to understand what the youngsters wanted from life if they were to keep them.

Things like allowing farm staff two days off in a row so they could visit urban friends might have a beneficial effect.

Low wages might not be the biggest barrier to attracting rural workers, he said. It might be a perception that they would not have the same career advancement opportunities as they would by staying in an urban area.

Young people moving to urban areas were not going for better wages and could be worse off financially, initially at least. But they believed that in the long term they would be better off and in a better job than if they were in a rural area.

“To attract people to rural jobs they need to increase the perception there is a career path and they can benefit from lower living costs.”

Sloan’s research found people had accurate assessments of what urban and rural areas could provide and were realistic about what would happen if they moved.

Those moving in each direction had similar age profiles. They were aged 20-40, with the bulk weighted to the younger set and numbers tailing off from 35.

But there was no great movement around retirement age.

And the idea cities were growing because of immigration, with people then dispersing to smaller towns and rural areas, was not borne out by the research.

Sloan also had a warning about forced movement to bolster provinces.

“Every now and again we have a push for movement of jobs into rural areas, such as moving government departments to the provinces.”

However, those jobs were in urban areas because there were enough people with the skills to do them and provide the necessary support services, he said.

The research showed people who moved often found the new area did not have what they wanted outside work and were likely to move again, potentially as quickly as within three months.

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