Dr Silvia Avram has co-edited a new book published this week, A Research Agenda for Financial Resources within the Household, which includes a chapter written by Dr Daria Popova and Dr Silvia Avram.
The book presents a cross-disciplinary Research Agenda, which offers an in-depth exploration into financial resources within households, focussing specifically on how they are managed, how they are distributed and with what results. Bringing together an array of leading experts from the Global South and North, this Research Agenda examines the challenges facing researchers in this area, investigates developments in the field and analyses how research interacts with current public policy.
A Research Agenda for Financial Resources with the Household is edited by Fran Bennett, Associate Fellow, Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford, UK, Silvia Avram, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), University of Essex, UK and Siobhan Austen, Professor Emerita of Economics, Curtin University, Australia
Contributors include: Siobhan Austen, Silvia Avram, Fran Bennett, Tania Burchardt, Sara Cantillon, Monica Costa, Rita Griffiths, Anne-Catherine Guio, Susan Himmelweit, Thandie Hlabana, Marilyn Howard, Eleni Karagiannaki, Gill Main, Satomi Maruyama, Elena Moore, Abena D. Oduro, Jan Pahl, Daria Popova, Debora Price, Rhonda Sharp, Nicola Sharp-Jeffs, Supriya Singh, Kate Summers, Hema Swaminathan, Frances Woolley, David Young.
Critical acclaim
‘This book is a long overdue and important contribution to the literature on the intra-household allocation of resources. The chapters in the book provide a thorough and well-written introduction to the topic for students who are new to it. However, it will also be important reading for those researchers familiar with the topic.
Scholars interested in the intra-household allocation of resources will recognise many of the themes and questions that are addressed in the chapters of this comprehensive book. Familiar and well-researched questions are addressed from new theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. The chapters in the book take up, in fresh and innovative ways, familiar questions such as assumptions about the sharing of resources that underlie beliefs about sharing in households and families, the connection to policy, issues of power and the (sometimes) conflicting priorities between individual and family interests and well-being.
But the book does not stop there. It also expands the scope of research on intra-household resource allocation by including under-researched geographical areas and new topics that mirror the times we live in. For instance, it looks more closely at financial allocation and practices in the global south and in elderly couples, the role of children in resource allocation, complex migrant households and economic abuse in couples.
I highly recommend this book to all those interested in opening up the lid of the “black box” of household and family finances and taking a peek inside.’
– Charlott Nyman, Umeå University, Sweden
‘How resources are distributed within households is notoriously difficult to analyse. The 15 chapters of this book offer a remarkable review of the conceptual and methodological challenges faced and the advances in research on intra-household management and allocation of resources, the importance of the issues raised and their implications for the assessment of individual economic well-being, autonomy and living conditions, and for public policies. This is essential reading.’
– Sophie Ponthieux, formerly Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques (INSEE), France