Mortgage arrears and gender inequalities

This paper explores the experience of living with mortgage arrears and looks at the extent to which there has been a widening of gender inequalities within defaulting households. Debates on coping strategies and housing careers are examined, pointing to the ways in which understandings of these have been transformed by gender relations. In this context, qualitative evidence is drawn from a study of 20 defaulting households living in Swindon. This material is used to explore the extent to which a more widespread impression of egalitarian shifts in gender practices is an unrealistic expectation to hold in the case of households with mortgage arrears.