The Structural and Cultural Context of Deaths of Despair: A Qualitative Study of Urban and Rural Joblessness and Precarity

Deaths related to suicide, alcohol-related diseases, and drug overdoses have spiked in recent years. Journalists and scholars have speculated about the relationship between these “deaths of despair” and changes in the labor market that have made high-paying, stable work harder to find for those without a college degree. Drawing from ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with working-class individuals with opioid-related problems, sociologist Victor Chen will explore the associations among joblessness, income insecurity, social isolation, and opioid-related diseases in an urban and a rural context—the city of Richmond, Virginia, and Nottoway County, Virginia.