The Changing Occupational Structure of the Amish of the Holmes County, Ohio, Settlement

Abstract

landscape of grandfather houses, windmills, draft horses and shocks of grain in the fields, buggies on the roads, and quaintly turned-out “plain people”. But life is changing for the Amish. Less than a quarter of the Amish now gain their living directly from agriculture and the numbers are steadily falling. This paper examines the changes in occupational structure among the Amish of Holmes County, Ohio, the largest Amish settlement in the world. It also investigates differences in occupations among the three leading sects of Amish in this county. Occupations listed by the Amish themselves in the Ohio Amish Directory are used to trace the decline in farming, as well as to identify the growing types of non-farm employment. Not only are numbers of Amish in nonagricultural jobs increasing, so also is the range of employment opportunities available.