What Do Households Do when Things Are Rough?? Economic Situation, Pessimistic Economic Expectations and the Use of Livelihood Practices

Juliane Achatz, Anton Nivorozhkin (), Markus Promberger and Brigitte Schels
Additional contact information
Juliane Achatz: Institute for Employment Research (IAB)
Anton Nivorozhkin: Institute for Employment Research (IAB)
Markus Promberger: Institute for Employment Research (IAB)
Brigitte Schels: Paris Lodron University Salzburg

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2025, vol. 178, issue 1, No 20, 499-521

Abstract: Abstract This study investigates everyday practices that households utilize to improve or maintain their livelihoods. Drawing on prior qualitative research across various European economies, we developed a new survey tool, which was deployed within a larger survey encompassing the entire economic spectrum of German households. Using explorative factor analysis, we identified four overarching livelihood strategies employed by households: budget management, subsistence production, the liquidation of household assets, and the parsimonious procurement of essentials. Our results indicate a differential prevalence of these strategies, with a notable frequency among low-income households, although they are not exclusive to this group. The study reveals that both objective economic factors, such as income and material deprivation, and assessments of a household’s past economic downturn and pessimistic future economic expectations influence the likelihood of adopting these livelihood strategies. However, certain indicators are more strongly predictive of specific strategies, such as parsimonious procurement of essentials is associated with lower household income and material deprivation while liquidation of household assets is closely associated with experiences of economic downturns.

Keywords: Livelihood strategies; Household practices; Income gradient; Material deprivation; Pessimistic economic expectations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-025-03596-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:soinre:v:178:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-025-03596-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-025-03596-9

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().