Abstract

FELICE, Magdalena. "Investing in Life": Economic Decisions and Generational Differences about Housing among Young People in the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2017, n.28, pp.193-212. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda28.2017.09.

This article explores how age, as a particular temporal and historical experience, functions in the economic decisions of social agents. Using the tools of economic anthropology, the article analyzes how a group of young university students in the city of Buenos Aires make decisions about access to housing, on the basis of their opinions and perceptions about renting and property when they leave their family homes and establish an independent life. Employing a qualitative-interpretative approach, based on in-depth interviews, the article shows how young people leave a trace of the particular social and historical circumstances of their age in their search for housing. At that stage of their lives, and governed by the conditions of the housing market, these young university students confront the opinions of their parents, for whom renting is a "waste of money" and resignify it as an "investment" in terms of its social rather than economic utility: renting is a tool for building their autonomy.

Keywords : young people; rented housing; economic decisions; economic anthropology.

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