The past century has witnessed large shifts in the concentration of agricultural industries in the U.S., with a very small number of large farms producing the nation’s food supply today compared to the past. For instance, the average number of dairy cows per dairy farm in the U.S. has grown from 4 in 1900 to 258 in 2022. I document trends of this type across time periods and different agricultural industries, and propose an empirical strategy to investigate their effects on local agricultural employment patterns. I also consider the relationship between these concentration trends and additional rural community outcomes such as outmigration, aging populations, school closures, and government assistance take-up.
The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) established a variety of industry-specific labor market regulations, including increases in the minimum age of employment. I review and construct a dataset of the 538 main NIRA industry codes, capturing their minimum ages and other key provisions, and link this dataset to historical U.S. Census data at the industry level. I utilize the differential exposure of children to child labor bans in a difference-in-difference framework to evaluate the bans’ impact on children’s educational attainment, labor market outcomes, and migration patterns.