How Breadwinners Manage Precarity: Indebtedness, Caste, and Depletion in Urban India

This study leverages a social reproduction framework in order to critically examine the household-level implementation of financial inclusion development initiatives championed by the United Nations and governments around the world. Prevailing assumptions about the benefits of financial inclusion for families previously outside the financial system include access to less exploitative debt in times of economic distress, and consumption smoothing that can relieve acute shortages in the face of economic shocks. Drawing from interviews with 110 low-income breadwinners in a small town in the highly financialized north Indian state of Uttarakhand, this study analyzes how precarious families manage economic distress. Centering earners and their households as a critical site for understanding public policy moves us towards an intersectional understanding of economic distress. We find that breadwinners turn to informal, highly exploitative forms of debt to meet their household needs and respond to economic shocks, which are often medical and related to reproductive or maternal health for women. We also find significant variation in in terms of vulnerability and mental strain among those within the same income group, as caste, gender and its intersection significantly shape the options that families have for responding to economic crises. Those from oppressed caste backgrounds, who have fewer social networks, appear more likely to turn to highly exploitative debt and experience significant financial and health effects from doing so, and outcome that is likely to deplete their households over time. We also find clues about caste resilience in the face of such depletion, where deep identification with natal land and community can provide hope for the future.