Financial insecurity

• Mullainathan, S. & Shafir, E. (2013). Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much. Times Books. The foundational study of how scarcity captures the mind – the source behind this page’s point that financial insecurity is a felt, cognitive state as much as a financial one, and why constant monitoring becomes the default setting.
• Walker, R. (2014). The Shame of Poverty. Oxford University Press. A cross-cultural study of how financial hardship is experienced through shame regardless of its cause – the source behind this page’s point that shame attaches easily, even when nothing was mismanaged.
• Haushofer, J. & Fehr, E. (2014). “On the psychology of poverty.” Science, 344(6186), 862-867. Links financial stress to narrowed, short-term decision-making – the source behind this page’s point that insecurity crowds out longer-term thinking, not just the present moment.
• Ridley, M., Rao, G., Schilbach, F. & Patel, V. (2020). “Poverty, depression, and anxiety: Causal evidence and mechanisms.” Science, 370(6522), eaay0214. Recent causal evidence linking financial hardship to mental health outcomes – the source behind this page’s point that persistent anxiety or disrupted sleep is worth raising with a GP rather than pushing through alone.