Explaining the Factors Shaping the Likelihood of Poverty Among Working Families by Using a Concurrent Mixed Method Design

Working poverty is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon. Prior quantitative research has painted a representative but narrow picture of the contours of in-work poverty, while ethnographic case studies have provided a nuanced account of the mechanisms shaping the experiences of workers in specific low-wage labor markets. However, none of these studies provides an account that, at the same time, covers the main theories explaining working poverty, is based on a representative population sample, and is attuned to the proximate interactional dynamics shaping poverty risks. The current study employs a concurrent mixed-methods design combining information from repeated cross-sectional nationally representative surveys with in-depth interviews, and argues that this design is ideal for explaining the factors shaping the likelihood of in-work poverty.