Social network capacity - informal economic and material support

ALTHOUGH SOCIAL network and social support analysis has been used extensively in the social sciences over the last twenty years, little attention has been paid to the implications of social support from family, spouses and friends in the research field of poverty. This article presents a research overview of economical and material exchange as components of social support and highlights its meaning for groups and individuals with temporary or regular needs of provisional support. Results from more than 80 international published articles are examined with particular focus on the pattern and impact of gender, responsibility, legitimacy, autonomy and dependency. The importance of changes in family structures and political expectations on informal social support is discussed, along with the effects of different welfare systems. Finally, the article propose vital research questions about the importance, character and social implications of informal economic support in Sweden, in the realm of a specific welfare state regime with institutionalised and in-bedded norms of redistribution and reciprocity.