Thriving and Surviving Activities of Households During the Crisis Period. Empirical Evidence from Southeastern Europe

We use survey data from Southeastern Europe to investigate determinants which explain thriving and surviving activities of households as their response to the changes caused by the latest global economic crisis of 2007/2008. Contrary to most of the literature that investigates these types of activities as mutually exclusive, our modelling strategy identifies and then focusses on households that have used both of them in the period of crisis. Indeed, the thriving and surviving activities were often used simultaneously and they were mutually related as joint outcomes of a wider system of influences. We identify that both components of household strategies were systematically linked to the economic performance of households and to different dimensions of social capital—generalised trust and informal networking. We also find that different social capital dimensions interact and build in their influence on the success of households—i.e. more engagement in thriving and less in surviving activities.