Abstract
The chapter is motivated by the rise of household debt in recent decades in Israel, as in most economically developed societies. This phenomenon, spurred by the omnipresent consumer culture and growing use of credit, is evident in the aging population as well as among younger cohorts. Students of consumer society have attributed the fast-growing use of credit in late life to increased longevity and the greater importance the elderly place on material comfort and leisure activities, compared to previous generations. The theoretical framework for this chapter builds on two concepts central to social stratification: consumption and risk. We argue that consumer society and its institutional structure are important driving forces behind the phenomenon of household debt and its “normalization.” While debt has become commonplace, the vicissitudes of late life (e.g., ill health and reduced income) pose new risks and a burden that in some cases may lead to economic ruin.
The chapter employs recent survey data to study the distribution of house-hold debt and its correlates in Israel. The data were collected between 2009 and 2010 within the framework of the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The data set contains detailed information for a representative sample of 1,569 households in which at least one person was age 50 or older. Information is available regarding debts associated with homeownership (mortgages) as well as financial debts (e.g., credit card debts, bank loans, etc.).
The first part of the analysis addresses the prevalence of different types of debt in late life and their distribution in relation to demographic characteristics (e.g., age, marital status, household composition) and examines the extent to which debt patterns mimic the well-known ethno-national socioeconomic inequalities in Israel. In the second section we evaluate the relationship between objective and subjective hardship and household debt. The final section casts household economic debt within a stratification framework and evaluates it both as a social risk and as a form of social closure in Israeli society.
We would like to thank Yasmin Alkalai and Dina Maskileyson for their assistance in data preparation and analysis. The research on which this chapter is based was funded by grant #289/13 from the Israel Science Foundation.
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© 2016 Nabil Khattab, Sami Miaari, and Haya Stier
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Lewin-Epstein, N., Raviv, O. (2016). The Correlates of Household Debt in Late Life. In: Khattab, N., Miaari, S., Stier, H. (eds) Socioeconomic Inequality in Israel. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137544810_2
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