The Center for Rural Pennsylvania commissioned a Marcellus Shale Impacts study. The fourth in the series discusses youth perspective on community change and future prospects.
The Marcellus Shale Impacts Study is a research project conducted by faculty and graduate students at Penn State that examines how Pennsylvania communities and residents are socially and economically affected by unconventional natural gas development.
The study focuses on the experiences in four counties (Bradford, Greene, Lycoming and Washington) undergoing high levels of natural gas extraction.
The project, sponsored and funded by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, completed the first wave of research at the end of 2013 and is currently beginning a second wave of data collection this winter.
The first wave culminated in nine topical reports and a cumulative report to summarize findings. The forth report examines the perspectives of youth in communities that have experienced active Marcellus Shale natural gas development.
Qualitative data was collected during focus group discussions with educators and youth within the four study counties. Specific topics of interest include youth perceptions of community change, curricular offerings and workforce development in response to Marcellus development and youth aspirations for future residence, educational attainment and career paths and how these aspirations may or may not be shaped by the changes youth see around them that they associated with gas industry development.
Several main themes emerged from these focus groups. Youth expressed that the gas industry has changed the unique, close-knit rural character of their communities. They also discussed dramatic increases in traffic and concerns of driving safety, destruction of natural areas, impacts on wildlife and their ability to partake in outdoor recreational activities.
Participants discussed uncertainty regarding the gas industry’s commitment to communities and the long-term economic impacts.
Finally, students expressed relatively little interest in obtaining employment in the gas industry after high school, despite discussing how family members or friends have accrued substantial incomes from industry jobs. They reported that industry recruitment efforts contained messages discouraging post-secondary educational attainment and given the potential wages, many saw college as a “waste” of time, money and opportunity.
Report authors are Kai A. Schafft and Catharine Biddle.
To access the reports, please go to the Center for Rural Pennsylvania’s Web site.
For additional information, please contact the project director, Kathy Brasier, at 814-865-7321 or kbrasier@psu.edu.
