Resilience and well‐being production among vulnerable consumers facing systematic constraints

Abstract

This paper explores how vulnerable consumers within systematic constraints of economic inequality, institutional barriers, and social segregation in an urban environment cope with their vulnerabilities to achieve their well-being. Taking China's internal migrant workers as a research context, our study examines their vulnerable experiences and reveals the impact of systematic constraints on migrant workers' self-perception, interpretation, and actions. It discovers a staged process through which migrant workers acquire resilience to optimize life satisfaction by fulfilling a sense of control over their migration life. Through a situated approach to capture the contextual impact of systematic constraints on vulnerability experiences and the construction of resilient pathways to achieve well-being, this paper puts forward critical welfare issues such as inclusive marketplace, social capital, and community empowerment which are important to migrants' social integration and capability building. This calls for more coordinated efforts to promote effective resilience building and sustained well-being among resource-constrained consumers.

“The greedy I that gives”—The paradox of egocentrism and altruism: Terror management and system justification perspectives on the interrelationship between mortality salience and charitable donations amid the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…), and businesses in this time of need (Hill, 2020). Nonetheless, the findings from this research are still encouraging and give us hope that we can revitalize resilience (Huang et al, 2020), referring to "a pattern of positive responses to an adverse situation or crisis that is sufficient for optimizing human potential" (Herdman, 2015, p. 376) and contribute to the robustness of humankind's capabilities to cope with emergencies. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we make a life by what we give: not only others' lives but also our own lives.…”

“…In the nursing and coping strategy literature, powerlessness is defined as “the lived experience of lack of control over a situation, including a perception that one's actions do not significantly affect an outcome” (Herdman, 2015, p. 370). Consumer vulnerability is commonly conceptualized as a state of powerlessness , which arises from an interaction of individual characteristics, individual states, and external conditions (Baker et al, 2005; Huang et al, 2020). Mortality salience, which is indicated by death‐thought accessibility, fear, and death anxiety, can be associated with powerlessness.…”

The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on subsistence consumers' well‐being and coping strategies: Insights from India and Bangladesh

“…Third, our findings suggested the co‐existence of emotion‐focused coping strategies— religiosity and social support —that were applied by SMs during current pandemic. SCs are vulnerable due to many daily needs and have limited coping capacities (Huang et al, 2020 ). However, our analysis revealed that religiosity works as an emotion focused‐coping strategy to reduce SCs' anxieties and stresses.…”

Why did (some) consumers buy toilet papers? A cross‐cultural examination of panic buying as a maladaptive coping response to COVID‐19

“…Secondly, in an acutely stressful situation, distressed people become very tense and are unable to trigger their resilience process. The comfort individuals feel through social support (i.e., emotional support) in such a situation can reduce the tension and assist people to initiate their resilience process (Huang et al, 2020; Wang et al, 2019). Empirical studies also provide corroborating evidence for the positive relationships between social support and resilience (Hu et al, 2018; Yang et al, 2018).…”