Who Hunts in America?: An Empirical Analysis of Income Trends and the Rural-Urban Divide in Hunting Participation

This paper conducts an empirical analysis of hunting participation in the United States, focusing on the relationship between household income, geographic location, and gender. Using nationally available data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2022 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation and the Big-Game Hunters: Demographic Characteristics and Expenditures addendum report, this study looks to examine how hunting behavior differs between rural/urban populations and identifies income-based trends within both groups. Hunting participation data is compared against U.S. Census data to assess whether the share of hunters aligns with the broader population distributions. Both descriptive statistics and regression analysis and machine learning are employed to evaluate whether income and ruralurban classification significantly influence participation rates. The findings reveal a critical distinction between the extensive margin (whether someone hunts) and the intensive margin (how many days a hunter spends afield): while rural Americans participate in hunting at more than three times the rate of urban Americans, rural-urban residence does not significantly predict hunting intensity among those who do hunt. Instead, gender and education emerge as the strongest predictors of days hunted.