Le cycle du surendettement

Résumé

Le cycle du surendettement

Abstract

Over-indebtedness cannot be properly understood without taking into account the economic variables that mark the subject's individual history and social representations ; furthermore, this study proposes a model based on an analysis of the content of in-depth interviews of over-indebted subjects recruited in various regions of Quebec in 1994, carried out by combining the life-history approach and that of the family life-cycle. The theoretical cycle of over-indebtedness is described according to periods and to phases (periods of debt accumulation: initiation phase, acceleration phase, critical phase; breaking point; periods of remission: critical phase, recovery phase, reinforcement phase). Rules governing the circulation of the subject among the phases are set out, so as to elucidate the reality of individual trajectories.