Work Package Leader
CENTRO DE ESTUDOS SOCIAIS CES Portugal
Objectives
The overall objective is to evaluate from multiple perspectives the differential impact of financialisation and of the crisis on social well-being across the EU, focusing in particular on the relationships of households with the financial system. Specifically it will:
- Review and develop theories of well-being (broadly grouped into either subjectivist or objectivist approaches) as they relate to financialisation;
- Review and develop material and cultural approaches to financialisation;
- Develop a comparative perspective (by type of financial system, welfare regime, labour market) on the specific impact of the general processes of financialisation on dimensions of social well-being such as access to resources (e.g. income, commodities, assets), non-material aspects of human life (sense of security, autonomy and self-determination, the quality of the natural environment one lives in, etc.), working conditions, consumer overindebtedness, pension provision, inequality, and so forth;
- Develop a comparative perspective on the impact of the financial crisis on social well-being, especially the effects of ‘fiscal consolidation’, also (and related) effects stemming from the crisis of, for example, increased unemployment, job insecurity, changes in work organisation, reduced income, reduced access to credit, deteriorating social cohesion;
- Explore what different categories of stakeholders – credit consumers, small scale producers, civil society organisations concerned with well-being and social and economic development – envisage as reforms key to the functioning of a financial system better tailored to their needs, particularly in a post-crisis context;
- Synthesise the nature of the relationships between financialisation and social well-being, and draw lessons for the future as to whether there are any identifiably superior types of system of finance (or elements thereof) in respect to social well-being and social cohesion;
- Draw policy conclusions to enhance social well-being.