The discussion in this short chapter, meant as an overview of both the findings and the theoretical framework, is organised mainly around the four elements of the book's theoretical framework. To begin, the chapter outlines the main findings on the incidence of poverty and low income among the study population and sets out the predictions for poverty in Northern Ireland in the near future. Following this, it sets out the main findings on the relationship between family and poverty/low income and discusses the insights yielded for the reconceptualisation of family in a context of poverty and low income.

Facing the future

The majority (53%) of participants had incomes in or around the poverty threshold for the Northern Irish population as a whole in 2009-10. One-third of the families in the study could be said to be in severe financial hardship. Nearly half of these families had some attachment to the labour market – indeed, in two cases, both partners were working. Hence, employment per se does not offer a defence against financial need. While inadequate income was the overarching facet of deprivation and social exclusion, the situation of families was exacerbated by a high prevalence of health-related difficulties that not only made demands on people's time and other resources but also created problems in accessing well-paid work. Lone parents’ situation was generally worse than that of two-parent families; contributory factors here included the level of income available to them outside of the labour market (which as mothers many cannot enter either because their children are young or because of the unavailability or unaffordability of childcare) and lone parents’ relatively greater propensity to report ill health.

How are these families (and those like them) likely to fare in the future?

The latest evidence (Browne et al, 2014) predicts a sharp increase in income poverty among children and their families in Northern Ireland. While the projections of rising poverty also apply to the UK as a whole, the rate at which child poverty in particular is projected to increase in the country as a whole is significantly slower as compared with Northern Ireland. Measured before housing costs, relative child poverty in Northern Ireland is projected to be 9.2 percentage points higher in 2020-21 than 2011-12.