Debt as the new credit or credit as the new debt? A cultural analysis of credit consumption among Danish young adults

This article focuses on credit consumption and increasing debt among Danish young adults by viewing this as closely related to new cultural concepts of money in credit based markets. Along with deregulation of financial markets and the introduction of new forms of credit, most OECD countries have in recent years witnessed a change in consumers' financial practices including an increasing role of credit in consumption. Young people seem particularly likely to obtain credit and to get into debt. Even in the relatively affluent Nordic countries we have witnessed an increase in problematic debt particularly among the youngest part of the population. Financial practices of contemporary young people, however, are still under-researched. Drawing on empirical data from Denmark, the article analyses the risk of debt among middle and upper middle class Danish young adults by relating individual financial practices to changing meanings and categories of money', credit' and debt' in contemporary credit-consumer culture'.