This paper highlights the lived experience of low-income families in a consumer culture where they cannot afford the ‘goods’ for a ‘socially acceptable’ standard of living. It documents how some families, faced with the external pressure from a consumer-driven society, turn to consumption as a coping strategy. The author concludes that it is necessary to develop a critical assessment of consumerism and, by extension, the role of marketing in it. This paper is part of a series of papers which have resulted from the Whose Economy? seminar series, held in Scotland in 2010 – 2011, whose purpose was to provide a space for researchers, representative organisations, policy-makers and people with experience of poverty to come together and explore the causes of poverty and inequality in today’s Scotland.

Authors

Hamilton, Kathy

Publication date

01 Jun 2011

Publisher

Oxfam GB

Series

Whose Economy Papers

Type

Discussion paper

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