ORIGINAL PAPER The Way into Bankruptcy: Market Anomie and Sacrifice Among Portuguese Consumers C. Abreu Lopes & C. Frade Received: 6 September 2011 / Accepted: 28 September 2012 / Published online: 30 October 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012 Abstract Portugal ranks among the EU27 countries with higher levels of consumer indebt- edness. Contrary to the trend observed in countries with similar indebtedness rates, Portugal has one of the lowest rates of consumer default. Previous studies (e.g., Frade et al. 2006) have identified three strategies that have contributed to keep levels of credit default low: reliance on savings, financial support from relatives and friends, and cuts in household expenses. These strategies have been widely used for the last decade and have been strained since the very beginning of the global financial crisis in 2007. We argue that these three strategies are near to collapse and consequently the levels of consumer default will rise steeply in the next years. The savings rate in Portugal has been declining over time, and the social networks are limited in their action due to the current crisis that affects everyone. In this article, we advance the hypothesis that sacrificing living standards is rooted on collec- tive beliefs about the current economic crisis in Portugal and trust in political and market agents in line with the Theory of Market Anomie (Karstedt and Farrall 2006). The con- clusions are based on macroeconomic statistics and on the results of a Web survey of 1244 Portuguese households, which focuses on attitudes towards the financial crisis, trust in political and economic institutions, and strategies to cope with the crisis. The results show that trust in financial companies (banks and insurance companies) and in the European Parliament promotes a sense of empowerment to contribute to the country economic J Consum Policy (2012) 35:477–496 DOI 10.1007/s10603-012-9212-y C. A. Lopes (*) London School of Economics and Political Science, St Clements Building, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK e-mail: c.i.lopes@lse.ac.uk C. Frade Faculty of Economics and Centre of Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Apartado 3087, 3001-401 Coimbra, Portugal e-mail: cfrade@fe.uc.pt