Deepening the Circuits of Credit: Gender and ‘a Deeper Share of Wallet’

Abstract

Restructuring on a global scale has resulted in some recognition of the need to alleviate poverty, much of which is recognised as being of a gendered nature. This has seen processes which are placing an increased emphasis on the interactive nature of households, security and the economy in terms of the intrusion of credit relations and other financial services. Although in different locations and spaces it takes on different forms, there is a general pattern of drawing women into relations of credit and finance as a way of achieving income maintenance. This can be related to the shift in political discourses since the 1980s, from a collectivist social democratic ideology to that of an individualistic neo-liberalism, which Cutler states leads to a redefinition of the political problem ‘Inequality leaves the stage because its resolution requires distribution. Its replacement is “exclusion” which becomes in effect a problem of lifestyle … and part of “inclusion” is the individual management of risk as a member of the workforce’ (Cutler & Waine, 2001: 113). Access to employment is then defined as the means of escaping from welfare dependency, poverty alleviation or ‘underdevelopment’ and developing economic solvency and independence. In the North this tends to be structured around the possibility of regulated markets rather than state provision of, for example, pensions.