The central interest of this book is the nature and significance of family in a context of poverty and low income. The book reports findings from a study carried out in late 2011 and early 2012 based on interviews with 51 respondents (most often mothers) in Northern Ireland. It aims to contribute to a sociological perspective on poverty by exploring and problematising how family-related exigencies, norms and relationships take effect in the context of an inadequate income. The ordinary and extraordinary practices of constructing and managing family life and relationships in circumstances of poverty and low income are the driving set of interests. The research on which the book is based was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under the Poverty and Social Exclusion 2012 study. While the empirical material is from Northern Ireland – and there are of course unique aspects to family life there, as everywhere – the book proceeds from the conviction that what is being revealed has wide application and speaks to aspects of contemporary life in conditions of poverty and low income that are generic if not universal.

Aims and objectives

Investigating the relationship between poverty and family gives the book four main objectives:

• • to contribute to the theoretical literature on family by offering a theorisation of the relationship between family and poverty/low income;

• • to explore how decisions and practices around resource utilisation are influenced by family-related considerations and especially the well-being of children;

• • to examine the support networks (if any) that people have available, the role of (near and distant) family, friends and neighbours in regard to support and the norms and expectations attending support;

• • to elucidate how income shortages influence and affect people’s local and wider engagements and interactions and the actions and representations people undertake to maintain an acceptable ‘local face’ and ‘public image’.

Developing and applying a theoretical framework to understand the relationship between family and poverty is a primary goal of this book. Family life under conditions of poverty is far less theorised as compared with poverty in general or the household as a unit for the purposes of poverty analysis. Household-based studies help our understanding of poverty in a context of family in several ways.