There are two critical dimensions to the storyline of the transient low-income. The first is the deference that these participants pay to the dominant money narrative. There is a strong sense of „moving‟ in an obvious direction: towards a life defined by „good‟ work, higher incomes and the well-being (material, physical and emotional) that flow from it. The second, but less emphasised dimension is the present: the necessity to improve career options through education and the low-income lifestyle that currently accompanies it. In this dimension, their diminished income is pragmatically downplayed as „necessary‟ to the eventual achievement of the dominant money goals.
Consequently, the narrative central to transient low-income participants is described as a „deferred‟ money narrative. Their stories do not dwell on their low-income or the
187 downplaying of money. Rather, their stories emphasis a temporally forward-moving focus directed towards the „goods‟ found in a dominant money narrative. In other words, the storyline of the transient low-income defers to the principles of the dominant money narrative even when participation in it is withheld for now.
8.2.1.
Temporal realities and perceptions
Education
The structure of the deferred money narrative highlights a complex interrelation of temporal realities and perceptions about the present and future. The first relates in most cases to the role of current education to the opening up of future opportunities central to a dominant money narrative. The story draws on the actual and perceived economic outcomes associated with improved education, in particular that it plays a pivotal role in both career opportunities and young people‟s futures (Miles 2000: 41). As Ross and Willigan (1997) note:
We conclude that education gives people access to non-alienated paid work and economic resources that, along with schooling itself, increase the sense of control over life and explain much of education‟s positive effect on psychological well-being. (Ross and Willigan 1997: 291)
Central to the deferred money narrative is the sense that the time spent improving knowledge skills through education in the present will reap direct economic rewards in the future. Recall Stuart‟s expression of education as a calculated „investment‟ through which his projected income would double in six or seven years.
Consequently, the current reality of living on a low-income is constructed as central to increasing the likelihood of achieving a dominant money narrative in the future. However, education plays a role greater than just calculating a raised future income. Future income possibilities are also linked to a sense of livelihood and a sense of „legitimacy‟ that confirms a person‟s location as an „adult‟ in society (Wilson and Wyn 1987: 4). It also establishes a sense of self-esteem. When Stuart insists that he is not happy to remain on a small government supplement throughout his degree, „just to go back and be what I was‟, he is referencing his desire to „make‟ something of himself. This „making‟ is part of who he envisages himself to become through the
188 education pathway – something more than what he was. Bellah et al. comment on this perception:
The demand to “make something of yourself” through work is one that Americans coming of age hear as often from themselves as from others. It encompasses several notions of work and of how it bears on who we are. In the sense of a “job” work is a way of making money and making a living. It supports a self defined by economic success, security and all that money can buy. In the sense of a “career”, work traces one‟s progress through life by achievement and advancement in an occupation. It yields a self defined by a broader sort of success, which takes in social standing and prestige, and by a sense of expanding power and competency that renders work itself a source of self-esteem. (Bellah et al. 1996: 65-6)
Consequently, while the deferred money narrative emphasises the future, the necessity of the present role of education is pivotal to the direction of that future: paving the perceived way toward a dominant money narrative that involves both „good‟ income, „good‟ work (as livelihood) and the self-esteem that is given through it.
The ideal of social contribution
There is another way that the reality of the present affects judgements about the future in the deferred money storyline. Central to the deferred money narrative is a story about the reality of low-income living juxtaposed continually with a future-oriented desire to live a dominant money narrative. In other words, the perceived or envisaged future looks quite different to the present. This disjuncture has implications
particularly for the way value-conflicts are integrated into participants‟ stories. Recall the recurring theme of participants‟ ideals towards social justice. For example, Virgil dreams of building a city in Africa, and Mondi desires to change a bank from the inside by working in its philanthropic arm. Here, it is clear that the reality of living on a low-income brings the moral issues of poverty into clearer focus for them. While they are not socially active, they determine that with access to more money they themselves could – and perhaps will - change the world.
189 However, the future-oriented emphasis on the dominant money narrative leaves little room for the actualisation of such ideals. Moderate material aspirations, including a comfortable home environment, travel, retirement, and lifestyle leisures, are part of their prospective futures. While social change is also added to this list of material aspirations, such idealism is missing from the dominant money narrative itself: middle-income participants reflect this reality. In a study on the relationship between income and happiness, Easterlin explains how an income shift accompanies changed material aspirations:
Judgements of well-being at any particular points in time are based on the material aspirations prevailing at that time. As a result, people tend to evaluate past lower-incomes less favourable than they did when they were actually in that situation and had lower aspirations. Similarly, they judge prospective higher income situations more favourable than when they actually are in those situations, because they fail to anticipate the rise in material aspirations that will come with the growth in income.
(Easterlin 2001: 481)
Consequently, the deferred money narrative, grappling with low-income living, can envisage an increased income as engaging with personal material desires and utilising income for the good of others. Central to the deferred storyline is the aspiration that to have more money is to do more „good‟ for self and others. However, the fact that the dominant money narrative (to which they aspire) has little room for social contribution of this kind means that, as Easterlin notes above, increased incomes are most likely accompanied with a rise in personal material aspirations. The dominant money narrative, for example, is strongly oriented towards the „good‟ of personal money for personal use, and quite ambivalent – even quite disconnected – from responsibility towards social goals. In other words, higher incomes do not necessarily provide people with the extra money needed to activate social contribution. Nor does additional income fuel idealism to drive social contribution, because as incomes grow, so do personal material aspirations with them. Again, regardless of having a low- income or middle-income, there is little room for the ideal of contribution towards wider social goals.
190 As a reflection on both the deferred and dominant narrative, it is clear that both narratives perceive an orientation towards money as providing independence, choice, lifestyle options and future opportunities. However, the deferred narrative provides an interesting insight into the fact that the independence, choice, and future
opportunities identified in the dominant money narrative are not unconstrained. Rather, they are constrained by their moral orientation towards money: freedom is financial freedom, independence is financial self-reliance; choice is related to financial options and future opportunities are pecuniary-related ones. Again, the privileging of one „good‟ above others – money - means that stories become increasingly invulnerable to the moral conflicts arising from those stories. Put another way, it reiterates that self-reflexivity - although strongly advocated in the idealism of the deferred money narrative – continues to be constrained in the dominant money narrative despite higher real incomes.