International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.1, 2021

How can finance serve society and  social well-being better: studies of “financialisation of the everyday”

(Abstract)

HE Jian

The “financialisation of the everyday” has been identified as one of the three major approaches to financialisation. An important part of EU’s FESSUD project is the study of the “financialisation of the everyday” or of society, i.e., to investigate into the influences of financialisation in areas of social life and well-being. The discussions of the project on financialisation and material culture point out that the latter is the ethos in the era of financialisation. Second, the rise of household debt has often been viewed as a characteristic of financialisation processes of the past few decades, and involved in the generation of financial crises. One of the key aspects of financialisation has been the dramatic rise of household debt. The project conducts studies of household debt, its growth and relationship with inequality, with focus on the empirical work on the financial sector and well-being. In respect of social well-being as an important topic, the project focuses on the relation between financialisation and pension, and its influences on other social provisions, such as housing and water supply. Moreover, the project also conducts some case studies, including an an overarching policy report on financialisation and well-being and its suggesttions about “de-financialisation”.