The Lived Experience of Poverty Across Generations: Impulses for Social Work

Zuzana Broskevicova

Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The study aims to understand the lived experience of poverty across generations and to uncover the factors that contribute to the persistence of poverty in families. THEORETICAL BASE: The framework of the text is grounded in critical social work, specifically the perspectives of structural vulnerability and social harm that are central to the interpretation of the data. METHODS: Qualitative research was conducted with young people and their families, drawing on the assumptions of critical communicative methodology. OUTCOMES: The stories analysed show how class, ethnic, and gender inequalities affect individual experiences of poverty across generations. They reveal how these inequalities, along societies’ crises, limit the opportunities and capacities of young people and their families to overcome poverty; it also demonstrates their resilience and resistance. SOCIAL WORK IMPLICATIONS: Understanding the complexity of the factors behind the persistence of poverty across generations can enable social workers to identify opportunities and barriers to young people’s social mobility, to which social work can respond by finding new ways of working with young people and their families and developing new strategies to combat poverty.

Keywords
lived experience, poverty, social inequalities, critical social work

p. 55-70