ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a model of labor-oriented coping strategies that guided our interpretations of the ‘cases’ and their behavior over time. It describes the selection of poor households from the data base and the methods used to interpret the raw data. The chapter looks at the income information alone and distinguishes several kinds of income profiles. It focuses on work-related strategies, especially increases in labor supply that improve the income position of the household. The chapter analyzes only a selection of so-called problem-oriented coping strategies with the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) data. The GSOEP contains information about socio-economic characteristics of persons and households over time. The income information comes from a question answered by the household head: the so-called income screener. It measures total monthly household income after taxes including government transfers and subsidies. The idealtype of the ‘self-employed’ comprises households that have only one thing in common: the employment status of the household head.
