Publication Date
Fall 2025
Abstract
This study analyzes how the neoliberal reforms implemented in Argentina between 1983 and 2001 transformed household access to credit and reconfigured financial inequality in the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires. Through a mixed-methods strategy that combines long-run quantitative analysis of macroeconomic, labor, and economic indicators with a qualitative reconstruction of institutional and sociopolitical change, the research demonstrates that the stabilization achieved under the Convertibility Plan enabled a rapid expansion of the banking system and consumer credit. However, this growth did not generate broad financial inclusion; access to accounts, loans, and credit cards remained strongly conditioned by labor formality, income level, and gender. Correlations reveal that rising unemployment and growing inequality were central drivers of exclusion, while the expansion of bank assets and credit primarily benefited formally employed, middle- and upper-income urban households. Neoliberal restructuring produced a modernized but socially selective financial system, deepening historical inequalities and embedding credit as a new axis of social differentiation in contemporary Argentina.
Disciplines
Business | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Recommended Citation
McEaneney, Elias, "Estabilización estructural y desigualdad financiera: La proliferación del crédito al consumo y la bancarización estratificada en el Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires entre 1983 y 2001" (2025). Argentina: Social Movements and Human Rights. 8.
https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/arr/8