This report builds upon the "State of the South, 1996" report by concentrating on how various segments of the region's population are faring, with special attention to gender, ethnicity, and education. States included in the regional analysis are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Most data come from special tabulations of the March Current Population Survey by the Bureau of the Census (1976-1997). An analysis of population, migration, and metropolitanization finds that the South is becoming a multiethnic society; African Americans are returning to the South along with other newcomers; and the South is now more urban and suburban than rural. An analysis of jobs, labor force, earnings, and education finds that a changing economic structure is making more high-quality jobs available and producing changes in who holds those jobs; women have steadily increased their participation in the workforce, but men have not; more women than men attend two-year and four-year colleges and the gap is widening; and the financial payoff from education beyond high school grew over two decades and remains large, while the less educated are increasingly left out of the job market. An analysis of southern families finds a sharp and paradoxical increase both in two-parent, two-earner families and single-parent, single-earner families; an enlarged middle class among both blacks and whites, but also a large income gap between white families and black and Hispanic families; and many families headed by single mothers with no more than a high school education. A final section reports on higher education, philanthropy, and leadership. (Contains 17 graphs and tables.) (SAS)