“Man ska inte klaga…” En intervjustudie om åtta kvinnors upplevelser av att leva som fattigpensionärer i Sverige

Abstract

In Sweden, pensioners are becoming an increasing part of the population and at the same time a growing part of the pensioners are at risk to end up in relative poverty, especially women. The purpose of this study is to illuminate the situation of senior women in Sweden who live on a pension that counts as relative poverty according to the European Union. Along with this aim the study explores what kind of economic strategies the informants have, how they see their own situation and how their situation and strategies can be understood according to the norms of society. Semi-structured interviews with eight women were used and then coded using grounded theory as inspiration. The study shows several different economic strategies among the informants. For instance to use social, creative and cultural capital to compensate for lack of economic capital, to build consuming identity on consumption of second hand shopping and free cultural activities, and to position the economic situation as relative wealth since the informants compare with people poorer than themselves. The analysis also shows that the informants reflect the society's individualistic ideal in their approach to their own situation and to their families.