ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the theoretical literature in order to enhance people's understanding of household responses to poverty. It reviews the debates surrounding the definition and measurement of poverty and clarifies the position taken in this study. The chapter discusses whether the household constitutes an appropriate unit for analysing behavioural responses to poverty given the feminist critique of the notion of the household as an undifferentiated entity. It focuses on the key meanings attached to the concept in the sociological literature in order to identify its boundaries, and discusses whether we can ascribe strategic value to socio-economic behaviour of poor households. The notions of coping, livelihood and survival strategy were rejected in favour of the term household responses to poverty' on the grounds that the latter allows a focus on a broader range of actions and avoids the risk of indiscriminate application associated in particular with the concept of survival.
