Project description
Rethinking debt and inequality
Debt shapes lives and deepens inequality. For some, it is a restraint that constrains opportunity and, for others, a wealth creation instrument. It is key to economically closing the gap between people by recognising how and why the gap is created. In that respect, the ERC-funded SOCDEBT project will analyse debt in 35 nations over three decades, identifying which groups are the most indebted, how and why that debt builds up following life events, and when and why people borrow and repay. It will further investigate cultural attitudes towards borrowing across societies and classes. By combining large-scale data with surveys and experiments, SOCDEBT will transform our understanding of debt’s role in global inequality.
Objective
The financialization of households in the 21st century has made credit and debt central to economic disparity, reshaping financial burdens and opportunities. Debt shackles the poor, limiting mobility, yet also offers leverage for the wealthy, enabling further investment, accumulation, and opportunity.
This paradox of debt lies at the heart of SOCDEBT, which is built around four key goals:
(1) SOCDEBT will examine debt stratification across 35 countries over three decades, identifying the social groups most likely to be indebted, the types of debt carried, and variations across countries and time;
(2) the project will explore debt accumulation, particularly in response to (adverse) life events, and how this process varies across social groups and national contexts;
(3) it will investigate debt practices and the factors influencing individuals' decisions to take on debt, strategies for repayment, and the role of social influences, such as peers; and finally
(4) SOCDEBT will explore the moral economy of debt, examining how different social groups view debt and credit across countries, examining cultural and moral dimensions and how evaluations vary between working and middle classes.
SOCDEBT transitions from investigating micro-level variations in household debt stratification to exploring meso-level debt practices and moral evaluations. This comprehensive approach will address critical gaps in understanding how debt stratification and accumulation vary across societal settings. By combining innovative statistical methods with multiple nationally representative household surveys for up to 35 countries across all continents and over time, along with new survey-experimental data and focus groups in five European countries, SOCDEBT will challenge and reshape our understanding of contemporary economic inequality dynamics around the world. Lastly, it will establish a new subfield of sociological inquiry: the Sociology of Comparative Debt Stratification
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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69117 Heidelberg
Germany
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