“Everyone's Living with Me Again”: The Role of Social Reproduction in Female Mortgage Foreclosure

Background: Women represent one of the largest groups impacted by risky lending and foreclosure. Even when controlling for financial profile, single women are 32% more likely to possess a risky subprime loan than a man with similar assets. Single Black women are 259 times more likely to receive a sub-prime loan than a similarly situated White man. Despite these trends, few have applied a gender lens to mortgage markets and the foreclosure crisis. The aim of this exploratory research was to add to the thin knowledge base regarding women’s experiences with mortgage lending and foreclosure. The primary research question was, “What are women’s experiences with foreclosure?”

Methods: A purposive sample of 31 single female homeowners in foreclosure were recruited from two community-based agencies in a large northeastern city (n=15 Black; n=15 White; n=1 Biracial). In-depth, semi-structured interviewing was employed to build knowledge about single women’s experiences with seeking a loan, buying a home, entering default and attempting to stall foreclosure.  Interviews were 1.5-3 hrs. long, digitally recorded, professionally transcribed and analyzed within Dedoose. Thematic analysis was used to pinpoint and analyze patterns within the data at the semantic level. 

Results: The sample included a variety of mortgages, (n=6 risky original mortgages; n=7 subprime refinance loans; n=9 fixed prime mortgages; n=10 unclear loan terms). Despite this variability, all these women experienced default indicating additional factors beyond adjustable interest places single women at risk. Thematic analysis indicated that risky lending and foreclosure did not mark the onset of financial instability among homeowners. Instead, it functioned as a tipping point for women unable to access upward mobility and asset accrual throughout the lifespan. Women’s status as the strongest members of a financially fragile social network interacted with holes in the safety net, lack of protective legislation and lending policies that placed them at risk of foreclosure. The burden of social reproduction acted as an amplifier and conduit of market risk that extended the responsibility for less resourced family members well into older adulthood.  As a result, unpaid care work revisited the homeowners either exacerbating or contributing to foreclosure and the early onset of disease before women were eligible for Medicare and Social Security. Lacking financial stability, women’s only asset lay in their home equity which they drew on to pay for their own medical care and to assist family members who fell through the safety net. 

Implications: These results point to the need for a multi-directional policy approach to alleviate mortgage strain. To date, policy interventions have been predicated on an assumption that the onset of foreclosure is an isolated market event. In contrast, this data demonstrates that women’s experiences with risky markets are tied to a larger context shaped by the prevailing gender division of labor, the erosion of assets within the context of a poorly resourced network, the failing safety net and the resulting shift of market risk onto female homeowners.