Surviving Cancer: The Role of Rural Women's Households and Social Networks in Coping with Cancer

Drawing on survey data and 36 interviews with rural women cancer survivors, I examine the role of women’s communities, social networks, and households as they cope with cancer in rural America financially, physically, and mentally. The findings improve our knowledge of the complex interplay between cancer-related financial hardship and social networks for rural women. Over a quarter of rural women experience cancer-related financial hardship, and those who report such hardship also report lower quality of life. I expand the concept of cancer-related financial coping to include informal financial assistance from rural women’s family/friend networks and ‘the community’ at large. Finally, I find that women’s cancer acts as a gender disruption in rural, heterosexual homes, catalyzing temporary transformations in the gendered division of housework and care work in their homes. Overall, the research for this dissertation highlights the importance of social networks, social embeddedness and informal practices for rural women surviving cancer and offers a nuanced portrait of cancer survival in rural America, a spatial context often assumed to be disadvantageous and lacking resources.