Everyday asset struggles: debt work, social reproduction and the (new) logics of inequality

Asset logics are at the centre of contemporary capitalism, class formation and inequality. This paper addresses the gender dimensions of the impact of the asset economy. Wealth studies have demonstrated the severity of contemporary wealth concentration, including the gender asset gap. However, the focus on asset ownership has obscured important gendered logics. Building on but extending the Minskian household, I analyse the everyday asset struggles of UK households. Using the UK Wealth and Asset Survey, I contextualise household balance sheets in two steps. I firstly situate household assets within recent asset inflating dynamics to show the gendered impact of rising asset values. The second step reflects on the high volume of debt across all UK households. I propose the concept of debt work to foreground the politics of how household assets are produced, used, maintained and sustained. This presents household social reproductive strategies as a key dimension of asset-based inequality as all household assets require significant levels of debt. These debts entail financial, cognitive and affective burdens and depleting effects that are experienced unevenly along gender and class lines. The analysis calls for a closer integration of everyday debt work into studies of how asset struggles are reconfiguring class and social stratification.