Debts of Care: Credit Card Debt and Unpaid Care in Mid and Late Life

Prior research establishes a variety of economic, social, and health costs incurred by those who provide unpaid care, as well as those who rely on care from others. Despite this awareness, we know less about how people cope with the costs of providing and needing care. In an increasingly financialized political economy characterized by the retrenchment of public safety nets, do individuals and families turn to private market debt to meet their care obligations and make ends meet? Using six waves of data (2010-2020) from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), I investigate associations between unpaid care obligations and the likelihood of holding credit card debt among mid- and late-life adults. I outline a theory of debts of care, which conceptualize social organizations of care as a mechanism of economic and social stratification. Chapter 2 focuses on mid- and late-life adults who provide unpaid familial care. I ask, does providing unpaid care influence the likelihood of holding credit card debt? I operationalize unpaid care provision as a binary measure which includes 6 types of care provision available in the HRS. I then estimate mixed effects logistic regression models predicting the likelihood of holding credit card debt. I demonstrate that providing unpaid care is associated with higher chances of holding credit card debt, and that this association remains after controlling for potential economic and demographic confounders. Further, the association between unpaid care provision and credit card debt holding is driven by within person changes in care provider status over time. Chapter 3 considers heterogeneity in the relationship between unpaid care provision and credit card debt holding across race/ethnicity, gender, and class lines. I ask, does the positive association between unpaid care provision and the likelihood of holding credit card debt vary by care provider gender, race-ethnicity, or class? I demonstrate that unpaid care provision is associated with higher odds of holding credit card debt among male, white, and affluent care providers compared to their less privileged counterparts. Drawing on histories of exclusion and predatory inclusion in credit and debt markets, I discuss how historic and contemporary stratification in t credit access and use shape who relies on what kinds of borrowing and debt. Chapter 4 shifts from focusing on those who provide unpaid care to those who rely on unpaid care from others. I ask, are disabled adults more likely than non-disabled adults to hold credit card debt? I further ask, does the relationship between disability and credit card debt holding vary by unmet care need? I develop a measure of unmet care need using the available data in the HRS and building on prior conceptualizations. I find that disabled adults who experience unmet care needs are significantly more likely to hold credit card debt than disabled adults who do not experience unmet care needs, as well as non-disabled adults. My findings theoretically and empirically improve sociological understandings of political economies of care provision in the United States. In the face of increasingly retrenched public safety nets and increasing precarity in labor markets, the risks and costs associated with the everyday and intergenerational (re)production of human life are increasingly shifted onto private individuals and families. Neoliberal economic logic posits that private wealth and asset accumulation are preferable to robust public provisioning of social welfare. In practice, this has engendered increasing indebtedness across the population. In the absence of robust public alternatives, the most vulnerable among us, and those who care for them, pay the costs.