The specific purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of several decades of high out-migration in the socioeconomic adjustment of households left behind in the Arkansas Ozarks and to identify meaningful labor force and social adjustments to poverty area industrialization. The study involved 12 counties in north-central Arkansas. The research design compared the same families over a period of time since the same 12 counties were studied in 1956. The sample consisted of 313 open-country households yielding information for 148 non-migrant and 165 in-migrant families. Survey data revealed that non-migrant households did not share equally in the socioeconomic progress experienced by the residual residents of the area; that 43% of the non-migrant families and 38% of the in-migrant households experienced some income deprivation; that nonwork incomes play an important part for the majority of families, and that in-migrants have a considerable advantage in the labor market. (PS)