Fighting Poverty in Times of Crisis in Europe

What is it about?

This article offers an in-depth comparative study on three families from three countries – Portugal, Ireland, and Poland –, undertaking a comprehensive analysis of resilience processes in coping with poverty during the debt crisis. Following a qualitative approach, we analyzed the live stories and everyday challenges of the selected families to understand how their resilience able them to cope with socioeconomic hardship and in which way it affected their ways of life. _x000D_ The research was prompted by the participation in a wider research project, titled Patterns of Resilience during Socioeconomic Crises among Households in Europe (RESCuE), which was focused on identifying resilience practices and operationalizing resilience-based policies. This paper poses a different set of questions: how does resilience as a coping mechanism shapes the ways of life of households? Is there any link between the emergence of resilience-oriented policy and a wider political agenda in Europe? _x000D_ Our findings suggest that resilience has only marginal positive effects on coping with poverty, consisting mostly of subsistence practices to deal with increased levels of deprivation and social risk. Resilience socioeconomic practices absorb the ways of life of households. In addition, resilience-based approaches have shown a strong compatibility with the retrenchment of the welfare state, accentuating the individualization of social responses to poverty and socioeconomic crisis.

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