Introduction: Negative terminology and area status
The purpose of this report is to investigate the attitudes of the Danish population towards the image and development of Danish rural districts. Apart from drawing on a number of interviews among young people from Lemvig Municipality, this is primarily done by using survey data from the so-called Danish Rural-Urban Barometer (DRUB), which was carried out in 2011/12.
The press coverage surrounding rural districts during recent years has been characterised by the use of negative terms such as ‘The Rotten Banana’ and ‘Outskirt Denmark’ (in Danish: Udkantsdanmark). Drawing on survey data, this report investigates the level of status attached to living in rural and urban areas. Apart from that, the report investigates how the Danish population thinks about a number of central and often debated questions related to the development of rural districts in Denmark. Furthermore, the report investigates whether a person’s view on the status attached to living in rural and urban areas has an effect on his or her attitude towards these central rural issues, and/or whether it has an effect on his or her decision to live in rural or urban areas. Finally, the report investigates to what degree area status perceptions play a role for the future settlement plans of young out-migrants grown up in rural districts.
Research questions
The report thus tries to answer the following four questions, the first three by use of survey data and the last one by use of qualitative interview data:
-
Does the Danish population at large think that there is more status attached to living in urban than in rural areas, and how are the answers distributed across socio-economic groups?
-
Is there a connection between status perceptions regarding living in rural and in urban areas and the decision to live in rural or urban areas?
-
How is the attitude of the Danish population towards six central rural issues, how are the answers distributed across socio-economic groups, and do status perceptions have an impact on attitudes? In general, the six rural issues evolve around the question of whether the development of rural districts is worth supporting or not.
-
Why do young people move away from Lemvig Municipality, and do area status perceptions play a role in their considerations about whether to move back to Lemvig Municipality one day or not?
Results
Regarding the first question, a finding is that people think that more status is attached to living in urban areas than in rural areas. Using a weighted sample, representative of the entire country, the mean status score for living in urban areas is found to be 5.42 on a scale from 1-10, and the mean score for living in rural areas is found to be 4.53. The difference between the two mean scores is statistically significant. Whether this difference in due to the negative press coverage of rural areas in recent years could not be investigated by using data from the DRUB survey, but it is likely to have had a certain effect. Furthermore, a multiple regression analysis showed that it is primarily women, young people, self-employed people and people with a vocational education or a higher education who think that there is more status attached to living in urban areas than in rural areas.
Regarding the second question, an important finding of the report is that individual status perceptions are correlated with individual location choices and preferences. This is revealed in a multiple regression analysis that investigates whether status perceptions are related to current and preferred place of location on a rural-urban continuum. This means that there is an association between, on the one side, a person’s perception of how much status there is attached to living in rural and urban areas, and, on the other side, a person’s decision to locate in urban or rural areas. In other words, people tend to want to locate in areas, which they think will give them the highest status. Thus, it is not preferable for an area to get a bad reputation, such as being labelled part of ‘Outskirt Denmark’, because it will exert negative influence on the settlement in the area.
Regarding the third question, the report reveals favorable attitudes towards rural districts among the Danish population. Thus, a quite large share of the respondents fully agreed that more state companies ought to be moved out of the capital city (44 % in the unweighted sample). Moreover, a quite large share of the respondents fully agreed that it is wrong to close down small schools in rural areas (46 % in the unweighted sample), that Danish outskirt areas ought to have more economic support from the public sector (39 % in the unweighted sample), that politicians and bureaucrats in Copenhagen only understand little of what is going on in Danish outskirt areas (50 % in the unweighted sample), that way too many decisions are taken in the capital city (53 % in the unweighted sample), and that in general, Danish media are too negative in their coverage of the life in rural districts (33 % in the unweighted sample). The results thus indicate that a quite large share of the population wishes to preserve small rural schools and wishes that an effort is made to develop Danish rural districts. Moreover, a multiple regression shows that people with a high education and people located in city areas gave the least positive answers with regards to the question of whether an effort ought to be made to preserve and develop Danish rural areas. Thus, these groups stood out by taking a more critical attitude. Finally, the report shows that a person’s perceptions towards how much status is attached to living in rural and urban areas does not significantly influence his or her attitudes towards the six rural issues mentioned above. It is only in connection with closure of small rural schools that status perceptions play a role. Thus, the more status one thinks there is attached to living in urban areas, as opposed to living in rural areas, the less one thinks that it is wrong to close down small schools in rural areas. The results regarding the attitudes towards rural districts should however be taken with some caution. One might raise the objection that the questions are leading, that consenting in the statements can be done in a non-committal way, and that respondents have responded on a relatively uninformed basis.
Regarding the fourth question, we used data from telephone interviews with 25 young out-migrants from the rural municipality of Lemvig. Hereof 19 of the youngsters were born and had grown up in the municipality. Half of them were students. The most important reasons for leaving were education, friends and lack of opportunities, including job opportunities. Apart from that, it turned out that the youngsters generally held very positive pictures of rural life, in particular stressing the beautiful nature, quiet surroundings, strong local communities, family and friends, as well as a happy childhood. Many expressed a strong belonging to the local community, the municipality and/or the region. The downside was that ‘too little is happening’ for young people in the municipality. The large majority of them found that Lemvig Municipality is a part of ‘Outskirt Denmark’, however only in the sense of being geographically remote. When asked whether they considered moving back to the municipality, 11 of the interview persons said that they did consider it, provided that they were able to find a job. The most important reason for the remaining 14 youngsters for not considering moving back was lack of attractive jobs. However, many of them considered moving back to the region, primarily due to proximity to their family and the ‘mentality’ in the region. In sum, for the large majority of these youngsters area status did not seriously influence their future settlement plans, rather the lack of opportunities in their childhood municipality, here not least lack of job opportunities.
Policy implications
The results of this report lead to three main policy implications. Firstly, among the Danish population, there appears to be a quite strong backing in launching initiatives that can promote rural Denmark. However, it is unknown how the respondents would reply if they had to consider the advantages and disadvantages of certain initiatives. Secondly, the effect of reputation and status should be taken into serious consideration by politicians and others who want to promote rural development. Thus, results indicated that an excessive negative rural discourse in the media might exacerbate rural out-migration. Therefore, politicians should contribute to downplay such a discourse. Instead, a marketing strategy of Danish rural areas might be considered, including local branding. Thirdly, the interviews revealed a strong sense of regional belonging among young rural out-migrants, why rural municipalities like Lemvig should keep in contact with these youngsters and try to get them back. The out-migrants were clearly affected by the debate on ’Outskirt Denmark’. However, due to a very positive picture of their native place, this did not seriously influence their future settlement plans – in contrast to an evident lack of attractive jobs for young, highly educated people. Therefore, rural municipalities should try to keep in contact with these young people – through homepages, email communication, newsletters that include job openings, arrangements etc. Besides, the municipality might consider helping new entrepreneurs by improving infrastructure, by offering advice in connection with funding applications, or by offering quick and flexible municipal case work.