The meanings of credit for low-income families

• Autor(a) principal: Luiz, Gilberto Venâncio
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Silva, Neuza Maria da, Pinto, Marcelo de Rezende
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: RACE (Joaçaba. Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.unoesc.edu.br/race/article/view/22099
• topic: Family; Low Income; Credit; Consumption; Família; Baixa Renda; Crédito; Consumo

This paper reports results of a research that aimed to understand the meanings of credit by low-income families. In the research, with a qualitative approach based on grounded theory, it investigated low-income families from a city in the interior of Minas Gerais. The research corpus was 13 interviews and the collected data were examined based on the Content Analysis and coding procedures proposed in the grounded theory. Results show that credit has a positive and negative connotation. Positive ones involve the meanings of credit such as purchasing power, facilitator of family life, personal credibility and security. Negatives concern the understanding of credit as a dangerous tool involving risk, debt and financial problems. The ambivalent meaning comes from the negative and positive experiences regarding credit use experienced by families, their families and friends. Thus, it is concluded that the interaction between the experiences of individuals with close relatives and friends is fundamental in the construction of the ambivalent meaning of credit.