Mitigating Material Hardship: The Strategies Low‐Income Families Employ to Reduce the Consequences of Poverty*

2011/04/03 by Colleen Heflin, Andrew S. London, Ellen K. Scott · 137 citations
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Biology #Clothing #Dominance (genetics) #Ecology #Economic growth #Economics #Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations #Food insecurity #Food security #Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics #Homelessness and Social Issues #Law #Low income #Political science #Poverty #Socioeconomics #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1475-682x.2011.00369.x

published in Sociological Inquiry 81(2), 223-246 (Wiley)

openalex publication_date 2011/04/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

Despite decades of research, little is known about the contours of material hardship and how the social processes underlying specific domains of hardship are similar and different. We use qualitative interview data to examine five different domains of material hardship: housing, bill‐paying, food, medical, and clothing hardships. While mothers use social program participation, reliance on social networks, and individual strategies to mitigate hardships, the dominance of these strategies and their specific applications differ across hardship domains. These results complement recent research that identifies each domain of hardship as unique and suggest that domain‐specific hardship mitigation approaches are necessary.

Citations

• The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research.

Cited by

• Resilience, Agency and Coping with Hardship: Evidence from Europe during the Great Recession
• Place, History, and Food Apartheid: Reframing How Low-Income Black Mothers Make Ends Meet
• Past Due: Combinations of Utility and Housing Hardship in the United States
• Monthly unconditional income supplements starting at birth: Experiences among mothers of young children with low incomes in the U.S.
• Giving Unto Others: Private Financial Transfers and Hardship Among Families with Children. [europepmc]
• Addressing power dynamics in community-engaged research partnerships. [europepmc]
• Expressed and unexpressed social needs in low-income adults in the U.S. [europepmc]
• Acute care utilization and housing hardships in American children. [europepmc]
• Social Norms About Handling Financial Challenges in Relation to Health-Protective Capacity Among Low-Income Older Adults. [europepmc]
• The Impact of Tax Refund Delays on the Experience of Hardship Among Lower-Income Households. [europepmc]
• Parents' Perceived Social Support and Children's Approaches to Learning in Rural China: A Moderated Mediation Model. [europepmc]
• The Association between Food Insecurity and Making Hunger-Coping Trade-Offs during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Sources of Food and Easiness in Food Access. [europepmc]
• Social risks and social needs in a health insurance exchange sample: a longitudinal evaluation of utilization. [europepmc]
• Poverty Reduction is Not the Whole Story: The COVID-19 Pandemic Response in Relation to Material Hardship. [europepmc]
• Cumulative Risk and Intimate Partner Aggression. [europepmc]
• Monthly unconditional income supplements starting at birth: Experiences among mothers of young children with low incomes in the U.S. [europepmc]
• "First phone call is usually family" : Informal Borrowing Among Low-Income Debtors. [europepmc]
• Material Hardship Among Affluent and Poor Households in the United States. [europepmc]

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• Avoiding material hardship: The buffer function of wealth
• Past Due: Combinations of Utility and Housing Hardship in the United States
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