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Gender and racial inequality in U.S. credit markets

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dc.contributor.authorWentzel-Long, Melanie G., author
dc.contributor.authorBernasek, Alexandra, advisor
dc.contributor.authorPena, Anita, committee member
dc.contributor.authorPressman, Steven, committee member
dc.contributor.authorWeiler, Stephan, committee member
dc.contributor.authorDaum, Courtenay, committee member
dc.date.accessioned2019-06-14T17:06:30Z
dc.date.available2019-06-14T17:06:30Z
dc.date.issued2019
dc.description.abstractOutstanding household debt in the U.S. has grown dramatically since the 1980s, and households' borrowing activity is on track to return to levels unseen since the 2008 Financial Crisis. There has been limited research in economics on how patterns of credit use reflect and reproduce inequality by gender and race. In this study, I apply an intersectional feminist lens to household finance with four empirical investigations of women's position in credit markets. The papers are situated in an historically informed theoretical framework positing that women have been subject to three interconnected phenomena as consumers of credit: stigmatization, conditional inclusion, and exclusion. Chapter 2 investigates the relationship between borrowing from friends or family and financial exclusion, motivated by work in sociology suggesting that such informal borrowing has long-run costs and may be disproportionately used by women. I find that Black women are two to three times more likely than White respondents to plan on using informal borrowing as their primary coping strategy in the case of an emergency expense. Unobserved factors such as access to bank branches appear to link financial exclusion and informal borrowing. Chapter 3 explores differences by gender and race in U.S. high school students' aversion to borrowing for college and in the impacts of debt aversion. Female students and Black students are more likely to have a low but positive willingness to borrow for college than other groups. Moderate debt aversion is linked to lower levels of college enrollment, less borrowing, and lower costs of attendance, while strong debt aversion reduces the probability of enrolling in college for men only. Chapters 4 and 5 identify gendered and racialized trends in the growth of household debt surrounding the 2008 Financial Crisis. The results provide mixed evidence that high-cost mortgage lending targeted women or Black or Hispanic respondents. These groups experienced greater growth in consumer debt levels and debt burden relative to income than other groups post-crisis.
dc.format.mediumborn digital
dc.format.mediumdoctoral dissertations
dc.identifierWentzelLong_colostate_0053A_15395.pdf
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10217/195353
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherColorado State University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartof2000-2019
dc.rightsCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.
dc.subjectcredit
dc.subjectgender inequality
dc.subjectracial inequality
dc.subjectdebt
dc.subject2008 Financial Crisis
dc.subjecthousehold finance
dc.titleGender and racial inequality in U.S. credit markets
dc.typeText
dcterms.rights.dplaThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights (https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/). You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
thesis.degree.disciplineEconomics
thesis.degree.grantorColorado State University
thesis.degree.levelDoctoral
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

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