More rural residents turning to self-employment, University of Nebraska-Lincoln study says

With rural counties still trying to recover jobs from the 2007 recession, more rural job-seekers could be turning to self-employment to pay the bills. A poll by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln found that of the state's 75 percent of rural households where at least one person has a full-time job, "43 percent derived a portion of their income from self-employment," Janice Podsada reports for the Omaha World-Herald.

The study says that self-employment numbers greatly increase in or near smaller communities; 58 percent of respondents who live in or near towns with populations less than 500 have at least one self-employed person in their household. Only 31 percent of households in or near communities with 10,000 or more people have at least one self-employed person, Podsada writes. (University of Nebraska-Lincoln graphic)
 
Some of those numbers might not be a surprise, considering a larger portion of people living in smaller towns are more likely to own farms, with the poll finding that "61 percent of self-employed households in or near the smallest communities have a ranch or farm, 48 percent have a farm-related business, 41 percent have a non-farm business and 11 percent provide contract service to a company,"  Podsada writes. The report is based on responses from 1,943 households sent to 86 counties.