ABSTRACT
This chapter puts forward a coherent framework for explaining household responses and their outcomes for poverty. It starts with a critical examination of two major frameworks previously used to explain household survival or livelihoods, and introduces the explanatory model designed. Finally, the chapter presents a review of previous research findings and sets out hypotheses. It reviews two main approaches, referred to here as the economic integration and resource-based models. The first model explains survival behaviour in terms of the three forms of integration Polanyi used originally to classify economies, that is reciprocity, redistribution and exchange. Secondly, the resource-based framework completely ignores the behavioural dimension of poverty. The chapter outlines a set of hypothesized influences on household deprivation. The conceptualisation of the resource portfolio is often problematic for two reasons; one being the indiscriminate application of the term resource. The chapter explores which influences are likely to affect household success by investment and insurance practices.
