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Rural Mental Health & Family Relationships

Two Off-Farm Jobs: Are They Worth It?

March 4, 1996

People describe these past few years in agriculture as the rural roller-coaster. They have been crazy weather years to say the least. It has been wet and cold. Some areas have had bin-busting crops while others have had to deal with low yields and disease.

The livestock industry did well for a while. Grain farmers can hope for a good year but livestock producers look ahead to a grim picture. There is much uncertainty about this year.

Off-farm jobs. To keep the family farm and their dream of being full time farmers, farmers and their wives have added full-time jobs to their already busy and stressed lives. Some started working two jobs during the farm crisis years to keep the farm and claw their way back. The most rapid rise in off-farm work has occurred in the past six or seven years.

The Iowa Farm Poll shows that in Iowa in 1989, 29 percent of men and 44 percent of women had off-farm jobs. In 1994 - just five years later - these percentages had risen to 41 percent for men and 58 percent for women. Stress levels have risen during this period.

Instead of a rural roller coaster, a more accurate description for many of these farm families is that of a rural treadmill - working harder to stay even while having their quality of life deteriorate. Rural sociologist Paul Lasley has described this trend, also noted in the Iowa Farm Poll, as, "doing better and feeling worse."

They can never seem to get ahead. Their goal of being full time farmers remains elusively out of reach. Farmers have exited the hog industry because labor intensive work didn't fit with off-farm work. In many cases, they moved to cattle but now they are facing low cattle prices.

Not just one parent is working. In many communities both parents have entered off-farm employment. Rural America is becoming vacant during the daytime. There are latchkey children and childcare concerns. A critical dimension in the fabric of rural life is unraveling - volunteers.

Adding the third shift. Author Arlie Hochschild wrote, "Second Shift," in which she described how women have the lion’s share of housework and childcare when they return home from work. Someone should write a book entitled, "The Third Shift," to describe the complex lives of farm men and women who have added full-time jobs to their farming and family responsibilities.

The jobs they go to are either low-paying jobs in small rural communities or they are professional type jobs. These professional jobs carry extra levels of stress and work that they bring home with them or carry evening obligations and away-from-home training requirements. Scheduling and planning are priorities to avoid conflict and confusion. Low paying jobs don’t bring in that much money when you figure in gas, childcare, and convenience foods.

Shift work is even worse - especially for childcare options.

Increased stress loads. How do you face the farm bookkeeping or chores in the dark and under bad weather conditions when you've already put in a long and stressful day? Mothers of young children have to deal with guilt and worry about their children's development, sick children, and juggling or missing children's activities. People feel guilty about giving up their volunteer service and activities.

Parents are tired and frustrated. They may take it out on each other or on the kids. There is little time left over for a social life. There are fewer occasions for women to get together and offer each other support. Personal time for couples is at a premium.

Now add to the mix the financial pressures of making payments on land, a combine, a tractor or paying back operating loans. The dollar amounts are huge. The stress levels are great. A lot rides on the quality of the crops and livestock and the prices they'll bring - things outside their control. A machinery breakdown can add an extra blow to a cash flow already spread thin.

Is it worth it? It is a heavy price to pay to preserve their dream and lifestyle. In fact, one has to wonder if the fabled lifestyle of the family farm is being destroyed by the farm family’s last ditch efforts to save it.

Farm couples try to get through the day and live day to day. They hold the farm, marriage and the kids together and that is about it.

Are the sacrifices worth it? Will they ever be able to give up these extra jobs and go back to full-time farming? Farmers and their wives think it but don't dare say it aloud or to each other. The years of hard work have added up. It would be incredibly hard to bow out at this point.

This is the 90s version of the farm crisis - only instead of people facing foreclosure and bankruptcy, they are wearing out under the strain of high stress, incredible work loads and marginal rewards. No wonder they are "doing better and feeling worse."