The Structure of Material Hardship in U.S. Households: An Examination of the Coherence behind Common Measures of Well-Being

Unemployment and household food hardship in the economic recession

“…We argue that it is important to understand the association between unemployment and food insecurity since food insecurity results from competing demands for constrained resources (29) and multiple measures of unemployment may depict specific pathways from a job loss to food insecurity. More in-depth understanding of the relationship between aspects of unemployment and food insecurity is useful for nutrition and food assistance services to better identify and serve the at-risk populations.…”

Asset Poverty and Material Hardship in South Korea

“…In addition, some studies have differentiated the causes and consequences of various hardship measures. For example, while food insecurity and difficulty paying bills are more sensitive to temporarily income changes, housing problems and ill-health are more affected by the permanent income status or household assets (Heflin et al, 2009;Iceland & Bauman, 2007;Mayer & Jencks, 1989).…”

“…However, it is limited to disentangle income from assets and examine how differently asset and income poverty impact on household's hardship condition. Furthermore, some existing research on the association between material hardship and asset poverty is limited as treating material hardship as a single phenomenon although the causes and consequences of a specific hardship (e.g., food) may not be generally applied to households experiencing other forms of hardship (Heflin et al, 2009).…”

“…In the present study, following previous research (Beverly, 2001a;Heflin et al, 2009;Lee, 2011), 11 dichotomous indicators of material hardship were grouped into four categories:…”

“…Furthermore, past research estimated the association between income poverty and hardship measures to explore the causes of material hardship conditions, and found only moderate associations between them (Beverly, 2001a;Bradshaw & Finch, 2003;Mayer & Jencks, 1989). This is because the income measure only estimated the transitory income deprivation, while some types of hardship conditions are likely to be affected by long-term financial constraints such as lack of assets (Heflin, Sandberg, & Rafail, 2009;Iceland & Bauman, 2007). Accordingly, some scholars have argued that assets such as savings, real property, and automobile may be necessary to meet basic consumption needs (Gjertson, 2016;Iceland & Bauman, 2007; S. R. Lee, 2011).…”