Since 2008, Europe is shook by an ongoing crisis. If relevant parts of populations are exposed to socioeconomic risks, it is a distinctive characteristic of European political ethics that they must not be left alone, but should be subject to support and solidarity by budget support policy, economic development policies and social policy at different levels. But, in analogy with medical and psychological findings, some parts of the vulnerable population, although experiencing the same living conditions like others, are developing resilience, which in our context means that they perform social, economic and cultural practices and habits which protect them from suffer and harm and support sustainable patterns of coping and adaption.

This resilience towards socioeconomic crises at household levels is of main interest for the proposed project. It can consist of identity patterns, knowledge, family or community relations, cultural and social as well as economic practices, be they formal or informal. Welfare states, labour markets and economic policies at both macro or meso level form the context or ‘environment’ of those resilience patterns.

For reasons of coping with the crisis without leaving the common ground of the implicit European social model (or the unwritten confession to the welfare state) under extremely bad monetary conditions in
many countries, and for reasons of maintaining quality of life and improving social policy, it is a highly interesting perspective to learn from emergent processes of resilience development and their preconditions.

Thus, the main questions are directed at understanding patterns and dimensions of resilience at micro-/household level in different types of European member and neighbour states accounting for regional varieties, relevant internal and external conditions and resources as well as influences on these patterns by social, economic or labour market policy as well as legal regulations.