Financial biographies. The issue of distribution of wealth from a social scientific perspective

As a consequence of the current socio-economic changes which take place especially on the employment market and the corresponding developments of the income from employment, and the simultaneous increase in the importance of income from investments, the economic gap is widening further. While a relatively small group of people is able to steadily improve their economic status, the great majority of the labour force will most likely be faced with a reduction of its possibilities concerning financial actions. The issues of social inequality and distribution of wealth are highly relevant again – not least due to the ongoing financial crisis.

Against the background of these societal developments, this project chooses an exploratory approach to address the financial dimension from an individual biographical perspective. It aims at investigating the financial constructions of the individual, i.e. the subjective money-related schemes of interpretation and action. With the help of qualitative methods and approaches based on social-constructivist theories, various types of “financial biographies” will be developed and a differentiated perspective will be chosen to analyse the issue of the distribution of wealth.