We are pleased to announce that Edward Elgar Publishing has published the book “Families, Welfare States, and Resilience – Low-Resource Families Navigating Care, Employment and Welfare in Europe”, edited by Project Joint Coordinator Mary Daly (University of Oxford). This book critically reviews and develops the concept of resilience in relation to family life and has compiled rEUsilience research evidence across the six countries (Belgium, Croatia, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK) and with over 300 participants through the focus group interviews. The latter focussing on the experiences of low-resourced families, assessing how they manage challenges such as low income and poor working conditions, whilst also caring for children and others needing care.

The book therefore offers a revision of the concept of resilience for an application in a familial and low-income context. Chapter 1 introduces and reviews the theoretical background associated with the concept of resilience, underlying the utility of a critically revised notion of resilience for the study of families in low-resourced situations. Since family life is considered dynamic, involving transitions and family life events, research is likely to obtain a better understanding of resilience-oriented behaviour by considering the conditions of everyday life in low-resourced family situations.

Chapter 2 introduces the general background to family living arrangements in the six countries and examines the prevalence of various family types and the distribution and trends in poverty by family arrangement. It underlines both the considerable variation and growing diversity in family forms and circumstances in the six countries. Chapters 3-8 present the national cases. The concluding chapter takes an overview of the main findings, with reference to the theoretical framework and the utility of a resilience perspective for social policy. As the research has found a considerable dissatisfaction that was expressed regarding the system of income support and services within and across countries, the concluding chapter suggests that welfare states need policies that protect families during transitions and when undergoing risks, compensate for structural weaknesses and promote their resilience.

We hope that this book, fed by rEUsilience research evidence and written by high-level researchers, will greatly benefit scholars and students in comparative welfare studies, social policy and sociology and can be directly used by policymakers and practicioners working in social and labour policy.

Find out more about the book here. You can find the complete, open access book on the platform Elgaronline here