Livelihood of Households in Hard Times

In this thematic issue, we invite contributions that examine the livelihood of households in hard times. In recent years, households have been confronted with significant economic challenges, including increasing costs of living and housing, inflation, labour market insecurity, and growing unequal wealth distribution, that intersect with well-known structural inequalities. In addition, tendencies of political polarization exacerbate conditions of social-ecological cohabitation. However, studies that investigate specifically the experience, coping strategies and practices in dealing with these burdens in households are still rare. Research on households in poverty has provided important findings here, but there is evidence that the experience of “hard times” such as financial deterioration and vulnerability extend beyond the poor.

We welcome contributions that explore the conditions under which households are vulnerable to financial hardship and volatile incomes and/or the strategies or habits that households employ to cope with. Complex facets of social and regional disparities may be relevant here as disparate livelihoods may result in unequal resources and access opportunities depending on health services, local infrastructures, networks and communities in urban and rural contexts. Household composition and demographic characteristics may be as relevant as transient or mobile lifestyles, sometimes intertwined with forms of temporally and geographically flexible employment, or critical live events such as death, illness, or separation. Furthermore, welfare state policies play a crucial role in providing a basic safety net, but in current times of austerity, numerous states reduce or cancel social transfers. Against this background, an important aim of the thematic issue is to bring together findings from different welfare states and regions. Interdisciplinary approaches from sociology, social geography, economics and related disciplines are welcome.

Instructions for Authors

Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Social Inclusion is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).

Open Access

Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

Academic Editor(s): Andreas Koch (University of Salzburg) and Brigitte Schels (University of Salzburg)

• Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 April 2026
• Submission of Full Papers: 1-15 September 2026
• Publication of the Issue: June/December 2027

Call for Papers (Link)