Extending the Resource‐Based Approach to Livelihoods: An Urban Application toTurkishGecekonduHouseholds

Abstract

This article critically examines the existing conceptualizations of and explanations for the socioeconomic behaviour of poor households in order to lay the foundations of a new model designed to extend the existing resource-based approach to livelihoods. The proposed model groups 'household responses to poverty' into four key types: income generation, income allocation, consumption and investment. In explaining household responses and their poverty outcomes, it focuses on the role of different resources beyond income (e.g. social capital), along with the wider structural forces and household characteristics that influence the availability and benefit delivery capacity of these resources. The new model is shown to provide a theoretically more sophisticated framework with greater explanatory power and empirical applicability.

Income generation, informality and poverty in urban Turkey

“…The framework forms part of the broader resource-based model that I designed and used previously to explore household responses to poverty. As shown elsewhere, the model extends the existing theoretical approaches to livelihoods (Eroğlu, 2013). By seeking to place informal employment within the broader context of household resources, livelihoods and poverty, I believe, it also makes a theoretical contribution to the informality literature.…”

Are Movers More Egalitarian than Stayers? An Intergenerational Perspective on Intra-Household Financial Decision-Making

“…However, first one needs to be clear about the meaning of the term “resource” and its boundaries and place it within a wider framework that captures the range of micro- to macro-level factors potentially impacting spouses’ resources and financial decision-making behaviors. The resource-based perspectives used extensively within poverty and livelihoods literatures (e.g., Swift 1989; Moser 1998; Eroğlu 2013) have more recently been applied to understanding migrant adaptation/assimilation and subjective well-being (Alba and Nee 2003; Ryan, Dooley, and Benson 2008) and are particularly useful for this purpose. Of the existing variants, this study draws upon the framework developed by Eroğlu (2011, 2013) to explain household responses to poverty, including their intra-household allocation of income.…”