ACCESS NUMBER: 30897 

STUDY TITLE: Social and Economic Impacts of Outer Continental Shelf Activities on 

Individuals and Families 

REPORT TITLE: Social and Economic Impacts of Outer Continental Shelf Activities on 

Individuals and Families. Volume I: Final Report, and Volume II: Case Studies of 

Morgan City and New Iberia, Louisiana 

CONTRACT NUMBER: 1435-01-98-CT-30897 

SPONSORING OCS REGION: Gulf of Mexico 

APPLICABLE PLANNING AREA(S): Central Gulf of Mexico 

FISCAL YEAR(S) OF PROJECT FUNDING: FY 1998; FY 2001 

COMPLETION DATE OF REPORT: July 2002 

COST(S): FY 1998: $374,981. FY 2001: $39,465; CUMULATIVE PROJECT COST:. 

$414,446 

PROJECT MANAGER: Thomas R. McGuire 

AFFILIATION: Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, University of Arizona, 

Tucson 

ADDRESS: P.O. Box 210030, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0030 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: Diane E. Austin, Thomas R. McGuire 

KEY WORDS: Morgan City, New Iberia, family impacts, community impacts 

BACKGROUND: Louisiana’s coastal communities have been involved in the 

exploitation of oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf for more than 50 years and the 

last few years have been some of the more volatile in this long history. The MMS 

Science Advisory Committee, the National Research Council, and the 1992 Gulf of 

Mexico Agenda Setting Workshop all recommended that the MMS contract for a study 

of the effects of this industry on families and communities. In 1998, MMS sponsored 

this two-year study. In September, 1998, researchers from the Bureau of Applied 

Research in Anthropology, University of Arizona, commenced fieldwork. The research 

focused on two communities in southern Louisiana that have been heavily involved in oil 

and gas exploration, production, and support services on the OCS, New Iberia and 

Morgan City. 

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of OCS-related 

work and its impacts on the lifestyles of individuals and families and on the communities 

in which they live. This study was conducted within two parishes of Acadiana, a 22-
ACCESS NUMBER: 30897 

parish area in southern Louisiana named for the immigrants from Acadia in Nova Scotia 

who settled there in the mid-1700’s. Though southern Louisiana residents trace their 

origins to numerous groups besides the Acadians, Cajun often becomes a gloss for 

local white residents. In contemporary Louisiana, many other ethnic groups, including 

Vietnamese, Laotians, African Americans, Cubans, Mexicans, and Houma and 

Chitimacha Indians, are represented in both the oil and gas industry and in the 

communities of the region. The study focused on two communities, Morgan City and 

New Iberia. 

New Iberia and Morgan City were selected for study for a number of reasons. Both are 

involved in diverse activities associated with the exploration, development, and 

production of oil and gas from the OCS. Petroleum workers and petroleum families 

populate them. New Iberia is a sugarcane town that acquired an oil sector. Morgan 

City is a shrimping and commercial port on the Atchafalaya River that was strategically 

poised to become a prominent fabricating, service, and supply center for the oil and gas 

industry. Also, the communities, with populations of 30,000 and 12,000 respectively, 

are amenable in size for ethnographic study which, in its broadest sense, endeavors to 

understand the social, political, economic, and cultural dynamics of communities. 

DESCRIPTION: This study was conducted by a team of researchers from the 

University of Arizona’s Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology in partnership with 

fourteen teacher-researchers from Morgan City and New Iberia. The teacherresearchers are local schoolteachers who were recruited and trained to conduct 

household discussions in the homes of their students and other residents, attended 

study group meetings, and helped analyze their data and present findings of the study. 

Along with the teachers, two university researchers lived in these communities for 10 

months during 1998-99. They attended meetings, read the local papers, and visited 

homes, offices, and work sites. They talked with workers, employers, and families 

involved in the offshore oil and gas industry and with civic leaders who were 

knowledgeable about how their communities were impacted by this large and complex 

industry. Eight additional researchers spent from two weeks to several months each in 

southern Louisiana talking with more families and gathering information about the 

communities and how they function. Due to the changes that were occurring in the 

region and the industry at the time of the study, researchers maintained contacts and 

returned to visit the communities on several occasions through June 2000. Discussions 

often were taped and always were summarized in written notes. Information was 

shared throughout the team. 

Volume 1 describes the range of social and economic impacts and is intended to 

address the agency’s information requirements in preparing social impact assessments. 

The volume summarizes areas of social and economic impacts that accrue to 

individuals and families in the industry. It also reviews impacts on communities by 

examining demographic and social change, housing, healthcare, education and training, 

emergency social services, and strategies for economic diversification. It examines 

work in six sectors – drilling, production, fabrication, diving, offshore vessels, and 

trucking – because these cover a range of different work schedules, patterns of training 
ACCESS NUMBER: 30897 

and mobility, safety and risk factors, and responses to industry dynamics. It focuses on 

the segment of the workforce still in southern Louisiana, mostly laborers and lower and 

mid-level managers. Volume 2 presents four case studies that served as an interim 

report to the agency and to the study participants in Morgan City and New Iberia. 

SIGNIFICANT CONCLUSIONS: A principal finding of this study is that the workforce, 

workplaces, and impacts of the oil and gas industry are highly diverse. Workers and 

their families have indicated that the nature and extent of OCS-related impacts vary 

according to industry sector and position within the sector and the company. Factors 

that influence impacts include: (1) stability and vulnerability of employment in the sector; 

(2) wages and opportunities for advancement; (3) patterns of work scheduling; and (4) 

safety. Within and among sectors, company responses to industry fluctuations, 

restructuring, and other changes in the oil and gas industry differ considerably, and 

these responses contribute to the impacts felt by workers and families. 

Irregular schedules, unpredictable patterns of work and employment, and risky work 

environments have direct and indirect effects on the families and communities of the 

people who work in the offshore oil and gas industry. Five areas of social and economic 

impacts that accrue to workers and are passed along to their families and communities 

are addressed in this report: (1) economic rewards received in exchange for work; (2) 

work schedules that dictate how time is allocated and spent both at and away from 

work; (3) physical and psychological impacts on worker health; (4) intangible impacts of 

work on factors such as self-perception and status in the community; and (5) industry 

cycles and fluctuations that exacerbate all impacts. 

STUDY RESULTS: The relationship between the offshore oil and gas industry and 

southern Louisiana has been one of ongoing adaptation of one to the other. Individual 

and social expectations of those involved influence how impacts are felt. The 

multigenerational nature of OCS-related work in the Gulf has meant that many workers 

experienced the offshore lifestyle as children. Of particular importance to present OCS 

workers are the increased social expectations of fathers to be active, involved family 

members. Good jobs that offer predictable schedules, pay, and benefits make it 

possible for workers and their family members to organize their lives to meet 

responsibilities at home and at work. Increased opportunities for regular communication 

can assist their efforts. Bad jobs, those that are marked by uncertainty and instability 

and come with low wages and no benefits, place enormous challenges on families; 

even heroic efforts by families, communities, and companies are inadequate under such 

circumstances. Though many families adapted to the concentrated 7-and-7 and 14-

and-14 work schedules that are commonplace in the industry, moves toward longer 

rotations and increased use of on-call workers have created new challenges for 

families. Reorganization and restructuring has increased the proportion of bad to good 

jobs within the study communities, and the impacts are noticeable throughout the 

industry and communities. For many workers, the economic rewards associated with 

OCS-related work are no longer perceived to be worth the tradeoffs that accompany 

them. The most pervasive change has been loss of loyalty and commitment to 

company, occupation, and industry. 
ACCESS NUMBER: 30897 

Many of the changes that have occurred in southern Louisiana and affected workers 

and families involved in OCS-related activities are common to industries throughout the 

United States and the communities that are dependent on those industries: demand for 

workers has changed; companies participate in new markets; and large gaps separate 

families supported by good jobs and those who are not. This study acknowledges the 

general trends where appropriate, but it focuses on describing the specific ways that 

OCS-related activities and the people of southern Louisiana interact. 

Community impacts of the industry are affected also by specific industry patterns and 

societal expectations of the public and private sectors. These include both ongoing 

needs and episodic concerns. Examples of ongoing, though continually changing, 

needs are for specialized training and for services to workers and families without health 

insurance. Episodic concerns accompany upturns, such as when large influxes of 

workers arrive and can find nowhere to live, and downturns, such as when large 

numbers of laid-off workers require social services. Local efforts to manage and 

mitigate both types of impacts are many; they involve health, educational, and social 

service institutions in the public and private sectors. Though minor successes in filling 

gaps have been achieved, the prevailing attitude of service providers is one of ongoing 

failure to meet the needs that accrue from the dominant presence of the industry in their 

community. New Iberia, the more economically diverse of the two study communities, 

has had greater success buffering the community from impacts and making them less 

visible, but close examination revealed that the two communities experience very similar 

patterns and problems. 

STUDY PRODUCTS: Austin, D., K. Coelho, A. Gardner, R. Higgins, and T. McGuire. 

2002. Social and economic impacts of Outer Continental Shelf Activities on Individuals 

and Families. Volume I: Final Report. OCS Study MMS 2002-022. Prepared by the 

University of Arizona, Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, Tucson. U.S. 

Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico Region, New 

Orleans, LA. 308 pp. 

Austin, D., and T. McGuire. 2002. Social and economic impacts of Outer Continental 

Shelf Activities on Individuals and Families. Volume II: Case Studies of Morgan City 

and New Iberia, Louisiana. OCS Study MMS 2002-023. Prepared by the University of 

Arizona, Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, Tucson. U.S. Department of the 

Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico Region, New Orleans, LA. 208 

pp.