In a recent session, a client told me, “Every day, I think about the money I have to send home to my village to pay off my father’s debt. Without it, they may lose their house. It’s like a noise I can’t turn off.” This experience is unfortunately, a common scenario across households squeezed by debt, low income, informal credit, and uncertain futures.
Financial anxiety, the persistent fear of falling behind on money regardless of income level, is becoming a lived reality in South Asia. But, too often, we frame it as an individual failing. “Calm down.” “ Budget better.” “ Don’t worry so much.”
But what if our anxiety is not irrational, but a response to structurally unfair systems?
Financial anxiety isn’t just fleeting worry about money, it’s a sustained psychological burden that heightens the risk of depression, sleep disturbances, and reduced well-being. In India, household debt has risen steadily, largely driven by daily expenses and rising living costs, while household savings rates fell to a fifty-year low.
This surge in borrowing doesn’t just strain finances. It weighs heavily on mental health and puts pressure on relationships. People may not disclose borrowing to other family members, and many households endure the fallout of loan recovery pressures, from persistent calls to workplace visits, leading to shame, isolation, and chronic anxiety.
The Indian Financial Landscape: Inequity, Debt, and Silence
Financial anxiety is not evenly distributed. Social hierarchies shape who is most vulnerable. In India, women, unpaid workers, Dalit and Adivasi communities, and migrants disproportionately bear the brunt of financial instability, even when excluded from formal credit systems or safety nets.
In rural India, the picture is more tragic. Year after years, we hear reports of farmer suicides. Psychological autopsies reveal that indebtedness, especially from informal sources, combined with crop failure and financial crisis are major risk factors.
A study in Punjab, India, found that farmers with higher debts were significantly more likely to die by suicide. In patriarchal societies, there is also pressure to be the provider and ensure family well-being. National suicide data in India suggests that the emotional toll of being unable to cope or provide may be an even stronger driver.
This makes financial anxiety not just an individual pathology, but a social and systemic trauma.
Mainstream solutions often emphasize “building financial resilience.” But this framing places responsibility on individuals to cope with exploitative systems such as rising costs, unstable and unequally distributed income, lack of stable jobs, and regressive credit cycles, while ignoring poor policy implementation, crumbling infrastructure, and structural injustice.
Financial anxiety is not simply a budgeting problem. It is a rational response to systemic inequity, and must be recognized as a collective mental health issue requiring rights-based, policy-centered solutions.
What would it look like if mental health care acknowledged financial anxiety as systemic?
Structural Problems Require Structural Solutions
Community savings and credit cooperatives:
Self-help groups and citizen led cooperatives allow people to pool resources, access low-interest loans, and build financial security together. These initiatives focus on solidarity and shared responsibility, while offering an alternative to exploitative lending practices which can otherwise trap individuals in cycles of debt.
Through trust and mutual support, cooperatives promote stability while empowering members with collective bargaining power. Beyond money, they also provide people with safe spaces for dialogue, reducing the isolation and shame tied to financial struggles.
Policy reforms:
To address the structural roots of financial anxiety, policy reforms are critical. Strengthening social security nets ensures that individuals and families have a safety cushion during crises, which reduces the likelihood of debt spirals. Debt relief measures, especially for vulnerable groups, can help restore dignity and stability.
Meanwhile, stricter regulation of predatory lending, through caps on interest rates, transparent terms, and accessible grievance redressal, protects citizens from exploitation. When implemented effectively, such reforms create environments where individuals are not blamed for financial struggles but supported by fairer systems.
Financial well-being in therapy:
Therapy can be transformative in addressing financial well-being if we expand conversations beyond personal budgeting and include structural critique.
Counsellors can validate the systemic pressures of debt, unemployment, or rising costs of living, rather than framing financial stress purely as a result of impulsivity, or poor self-control. This approach helps reduce shame and supports clients to situate their struggles within larger economic contexts.
Integrating financial well-being into therapy helps clients build healthier relationships with money, strengthen coping strategies, and feel more grounded in managing ongoing financial pressures.
Grassroots financial literacy initiatives:
Financial literacy efforts are most effective when they emerge from within communities and are led by trusted members. Grassroots initiatives can teach skills like identifying and understanding credit traps highlighting how workers and citizens can claim entitlements and resist exploitation.
Culturally relevant and participatory initiatives make financial knowledge more accessible than top-down programs. They equip individuals not only to make informed decisions but also to challenge unjust systems, supporting longer-term growth and economic stability.
Shifting public narratives:
Changing how society talks about money and debt is vital for reducing stigma. Media, civil society, and mental health professionals can reframe financial distress not just as personal failure, but as a product of structural inequities. Creating awareness about current economic realities, and highlighting the links between economic systems and mental well-being helps normalize conversations about debt and financial strain.
By amplifying stories of solidarity, mutual aid, and systemic critique, public narratives can foster empathy and collective responsibility which can further encourage supportive policies and environments, while giving individuals permission to seek help without shame.
Financial anxiety is a mental health crisis that no one can “budget” away alone. It springs from systemic inequities embedded in our economy. To address it (in clinics, communities, and policy spaces), we must reframe it as a shared burden requiring collective solutions.
Our mental health is shaped not only by what we carry in our heads, but also by the value system we live under. If we truly want mental well-being, we must build economic systems that allow people to breathe.
Tanisha Goveas
I am Tanisha Goveas, a yogini, DEI consultant, psychologist, and therapeutic arts facilitator. I've completed my Master's in Psychology in 2018 with a special focus on Social Psychology. In my work I explore reproductive mental health, climate anxiety, relationship with food and eating, financial stress and holistic well-being. I split my time between Mumbai and Bengaluru and enjoy collaborating with other practitioners and spending time in nature.