Vulnerability and Consumer Poverty: An Explication of Consumption Adequacy

Abstract

There are multiple threats that cause consumers to be vulnerable in the marketplace, with poverty being a leading cause. Impoverishment often negatively impacts access to multiple categories of goods and services that consumers require to experience a reasonable quality of life. While there is research that explores the underlying factors that lead to resource deficits and marketplace restrictions, as well as their physical and emotional outcomes, an understanding of what is necessary to survive and thrive across societies is more elusive. To this end, our chapter carefully examines the concept of consumption adequacy (CA), which historically captures consumer needs for food and potable water, socially acceptable clothing adapted to weather conditions, safe housing that provides for privacy needs of occupants, preventative and remedial health care, and opportunities to grow and advance through education and training. After briefly summarizing the extant literature, each is described in turn, and ways of empirically investigating them across societies are advanced. This chapter closes with both marketer and public policy implications.

Citation

Hill, R.P. and Ramani, G. (2024), "Vulnerability and Consumer Poverty: An Explication of Consumption Adequacy", Lee, A.Y. (Ed.) The Vulnerable Consumer (Review of Marketing Research, Vol. 21), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 25-48. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1548-643520240000021003