Food Insecurity before and after COVID: What is the role of rurality and occupational resources?

• In Event: Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 6: How Precarity Impacts Workers

Abstract

Mounting research has documented changes in household Food Insecurity (FI) in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic, including initial spikes and widening inequities early on, followed by some early declines. Recent scholarship suggests substantial geographic variation in food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, a link between work conditions and family food insecurity has been identified, with workers reporting greater occupational complexity experiencing higher food insecurity. Yet efforts to examine FI trajectories, rurality, and occupational resources have been limited by the lack of longitudinal, representative household-level data. We use preliminary 2025 data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), a longitudinal dataset with comprehensive household-level FI information pre- and during the pandemic (N = 7,212). Using group-based trajectory modeling, we explore the roles of rurality and occupational resources in mitigating the relationship between pre-COVID and post-COVID food insecurity trajectories. Our results will afford insights into whether occupational resources may buffer or amplify the relationship between pre- and post-COVID food insecurity across metro and nonmetro areas.

Authors

• Lori Kowaleski-Jones, University of Utah

• Taylor Holladay