Paige Kelly

Paige Kelly

  • Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology.

Areas of Expertise

  • Rural Poverty
  • Spatial Inequality (community and rural/urban inequalities and development issues)
  • State and Local Governments
  • Social Policy
  • Racialized Inequality

Education

  • 2021 -PhD, The Ohio State University, Rural Sociology
  • 2017 - M.S., The Ohio State University, Rural Sociology
  • 2014 - B.S., UW-Madison, Community and Environmental Sociology
  • 2014 - B.S., UW-Madison, Agronomy

Dr. Paige Kelly is a rural sociologist whose research interests include rural poverty, spatial inequality (community and rural/urban inequalities and development issues), state and local governments’ policies, and racialized inequalities. Her research focuses on the local economy and the state as structural forces that affect place and population disparities. She has published on rural-urban disparities in local governments’ capacity, differential risks of experiencing poverty among racialized populations, and barriers to just transition from coal mining employment in the Appalachian Region. She has worked as a research consultant for the Federal Reserve as well as the World Bank.

She teaches the following courses at Penn State:

  • Introduction to Rural Sociology (RSOC 011)
  • The Sociology and Demography of Poverty in the United States (RSOC 530)
  • Theories of Rural Communities (RSOC 552)
  • Statistics for Social Scientists I (RSOC 597*)

Publications

Governance in Rural Communities: Local Governments, Rural-Urban Differences and Open Questions, Lobao, L, Kelly, P, Mangoni, G, 2025

The Local Welfare State and Differences in Racialized Poverty
The Sociology Quarterly, Kelly, P, 2025

Urban Austerity Theory, Politicizing Space, and Cutback Policies across Urban and Rural Communities
City and Community, Lobao, Linda, Kelly, Paige, 2024

Proceed with caution: US local governments and the American Rescue Plan
Local Government Studies, Warner, Mildred E., Kelly, Paige M., 2024

Challenging austerity under the COVID-19 state
Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Warner, Mildred E., Kelly, Paige M., Zhang, Xue, 2023

The Effects of Public Opinion on Environmental Policy in the Face of the Environmental Countermovement., Ard, K, Williams, T, Kelly, P, 2022

Whose Need Matters?: The Local Welfare State, Poverty, and Variation in US Counties’ Social Service Provisioning
Social Currents, Kelly, Paige, Lobao, Linda, 2021

Local Governments across Rural America: Status, Challenges, and Positioning for the Future, Lobao, L, Kelly, P, 2021

Review of Dividing Paradise: Rural Inequality and the Diminishing American Dream by Jennifer Sherman
Population and Development Review, Kelly, P, 2021

The Social Bases of Rural-Urban Political Divides: Social Status, Work, and Sociocultural Beliefs
Rural Sociology, Kelly, Paige, Lobao, Linda, 2019

Local Governments across the Rural–Urban Continuum: Findings from a Recent National County Government Study
State and Local Government Review, Lobao, Linda, Kelly, Paige, 2019

Another avenue of action: an examination of climate change countermovement industries’ use of PAC donations and their relationship to Congressional voting over time
Environmental Politics, Ard, Kerry, Garcia, Nick, Kelly, Paige, 2017