Family, Life Course, and Society Commons^™

Throughout the coalfields of central Appalachia, working-class people are engaging in alternative means of economic survival. For many, the region's endemic poverty is now worsening as tremendous job losses in coal mining diminish the historic source of employment for working -class men. In order to secure the necessities of life for themselves and their families, working-class women are not only entering the paid labor force but also turning to unregulated forms of income generation that lie outside the formal, wage-earning economy.