Blogs

The special issue aims to challenge our understanding of the contemporary large family and offers alternative policy discussion to an area either overlooked altogether or divided by stigma and stereotypes. By highlighting the social circumstances of these families and the prevalence of children growing up in poverty, the special issue also gives a voice to these marginalised and hidden families through robust empirical studies. This renewed research focus on large families aims to inform welfare reforms across countries, in particular around providing adequate economic support measures, reducing stigma, and appropriate family support interventions. The goal is to refocus inequality and poverty studies on an important, but often overlooked, aspect of contemporary family circumstances: family size.

This special issue welcomes, in particular, articles that explore three central questions and contribute to our understanding of whether and why family size should be central to our contemporary understanding of poverty and social policy: What constitutes a large family today? How do large families fare? How are large families recognised within social policy?

This special issue aims to revive this under-recognised perspective on inequality and poverty risk for children and families. We invite articles that address large families from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, a range of methodological perspectives that include the voices of large families themselves. Authors are reminded to align their article to the aims and scope of IJSW, i.e. all articles require a clear emphasis on social policy themes in the context of large family size, either in a national or comparative context. Moreover, discussions of empirical findings should consider policy implications for social workers, practitioners, and decisionmakers.