https://www.mdu.se/

This thesis studies how over-indebted women and men are constructed as clients within the Swedish debt reconstruction system. The aim is to contribute with knowledge about how over-indebted women and men are understood, problematised, and handled in research literature and the debt reconstruction system. The focus is on analysing the client identities that are constructed when over-indebted women and men are described and describe themselves, highlight how these descriptions relate to dominant understandings about over-indebtedness and gender, and consider their implications for the support provided.

The thesis is based on four substudies and the empirical material consists of research literature, focus group interviews and individual interviews with budget- and debt counsellors, documentation, and letters attached to applications for debt reconstruction written by over-indebted women and men. Deriving from a constructionist approach, the study draws on theories about how clienthoods are constructed through language use in human service organisations and how prevailing societal norms and notions condition this process.

The results show that descriptions made by and about over-indebted women and men portray their underlying reasons for the debt problems, ability to manage money, and help-need in a variety of ways. As a consequence, the descriptions are found to contain elements that both challenge and reproduce dominant understandings about over-indebted individuals being financially irresponsible or ignorant. Prevailing conceptions about gender and women and men’s financial skills are found to influence how the individuals responsibility for the debt problems, and capability to solve their financial predicaments, are portrayed. The result show that descriptions made by and about over-indebted women and men thereby construct client identities that are attributed with varying responsibilities and capabilities, shaping how the budget- and debt counsellors approaches the individual and the content of the support provided. The conclusion is that the process of constructing clienthoods in part is conditioned by prevailing societal notions, but also has potential to challenge dominant notions emphasising citizens’ responsibility for creating welfare.