The importance of attitudes towards risk to explain indebtedness in Southern European countries

Authors

  • Matilde Massó Lago Departamento de Sociología y Ciencias de la Comunicación. Universidade da Coruña http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3163-7023
  • Nazaret Abalde Bastero Departamento de Sociología y Ciencias de la Comunicación. Universidade da Coruña

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22325/fes/res.2020.11

Keywords:

indebtedness, financialization, mortgage market, Southern Europe

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the socio-demographic determinants and individuals’ attitudes towards risk to explain indebtedness in Southern European countries. This analysis is done within the context of an increasing process of financialization of individual behaviour.  We use the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS), drawn up by the European Central Bank between 2009 and 2011. The methodological plan consists of a combination of a multiple correspondence analyses in order to identify the various household debt models and a logistic regression analysis in order to detect the explanatory variables that best explain the differences between indebtedness models. The main contribution of this paper is the identification of those variables that explain the economic differences in household debt levels. Results are showing a relevant influence of individual attitudes to explain indebtedness in Southern Countries in detriment of sociodemographic variables which are not relevant explanatory factors.

Author Biographies

Matilde Massó Lago, Departamento de Sociología y Ciencias de la Comunicación. Universidade da Coruña

Matilde Massó is Associate Professor of Sociology. She has expertise in economic sociology, specifically in alternative finance and financialisation studies. She has been a Marie Sklodowska Curie fellow at the University of Leeds. She is a founding member of the Economic Sociology Network and the Executive Committee of the Spanish Sociological Association. She has extensive experience in coordinating and collaborating in research projects and providing academic support to undergraduate students. She is the principal investigator of the project ‘Social consequences of financialisation:monetary accumulation, lack of employment, social inequality’ funded by the Ministry of Economy of the Government of Spain CSO2016-78122-R.

 

Nazaret Abalde Bastero, Departamento de Sociología y Ciencias de la Comunicación. Universidade da Coruña

Nazaret Abalde is Doctoral Research Student at the Department of Sociology and Communication Science from the University of A Coruña and fellowship at Sapienza University of Rome . Her current research interests include: the relationships between money, markets, morality and daily life of households, social inequality and the impact of financialization on society.

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Published

2020-01-17

How to Cite

Massó Lago, M., & Abalde Bastero, N. (2020). The importance of attitudes towards risk to explain indebtedness in Southern European countries. Spanish Journal of Sociology, 29(1). https://doi.org/10.22325/fes/res.2020.11

Issue

Vol. 29 No. 1 (2020): Southern European Societies

Section

Números monográficos

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