Perceived causes of poverty in the context of objective poverty, subjective poverty and selected sociodemographic variables

Abstract

Background: Previous research on the perceived causes of poverty has been carried out in the field of sociology (Strapcová, 2005) as well as social psychology (Nasser & Abouchedid, 2001). This research has looked at individuals' perceptions of the causes of poverty and the effect of various sociodemographic variables such as social class (Kluegel & Smith, 1981), income (Lever & Trejo, 2004), subjective assessment of one's economic situation (Strapcová, 2005), gender (Bullock, 1999), age (Niemelä, 2008), education (Hunt, 1996) and employment (Strapcová, 2005). The majority of these studies have been conducted on people who have not directly experienced poverty such as university students (Cozzarelli et al., 2001), middle-class people (Kluegel & Smith, 1981) and social workers (Bullock, 2004). Therefore, there have only been a few studies done on how poor people perceive the causes of poverty (Bullock, 1999; Davids & Gouws, 2013; Morçöl, 1997). Research goal: The present study has two objectives. The first one was to determine whether there are statistically significant differences in the individualistic, structural and fatalistic perceived causes of poverty between the objectively poor and objectively non-poor as well as between the subjectively poor and subjectively non-poor. Secondly, it was to identify the predictors of the individualistic, structural and fatalistic perceived causes of poverty among selected variables including gender, age, marital status, employment status, education, objective poverty and subjective poverty. It was hypothesized that the objectively poor would prefer less individualistic and more structural as well as fatalistic perceived causes of poverty in comparison with the objectively non-poor. It was also hypothesized that the subjectively poor in comparison with the subjectively non-poor would prefer less individualistic and more structural as well as fatalistic perceived causes of poverty. In addition, it was assumed that sociodemographic variables such as objective poverty, subjective poverty, gender, age, marital status, employment status and education would be significant predictors of the structural, fatalistic and individualistic perceived causes of poverty. In particular, it was hypothesized that objective poverty, subjective poverty, gender, and age would be confirmed as positive predictors of structural and fatalistic perceived causes of poverty while marital status, employment status and education would be confirmed as negative predictors. Within the individualistic perceived causes of poverty, it was hypothesized that marital status, employment status and education would be significant positive predictors while objective poverty, subjective poverty, gender and age would be significant negative predictors. Method: The research sample consisted of 150 respondents (77 men and 73 women) aged between 19 and 64 years old (M = 36.67; SD = 13.23). In terms of education, 17 participants stated that primary school had been their highest level of education, 31 participants stated that they had left secondary school without A level exam, 46 participants had left with A level exam and 56 participants had a university degree (15 of them had a Bachelor's degree, 39 participants had a Master’s and 2 participants had a PhD). In terms of marital status, 73 participants were single, 8 cohabitated, 49 were married, 13 were divorced and 7 widowed. With regards to employment status, 79 participants were full-time employed, 11 worked part-time, 27 were unemployed, 7 were retired, 6 were on sick/disability leave invalid retirees and 20 respondents reported their employment status as “other“ (9 of them were self-employed, 9 were students and 2 were on maternity leave). The data were dichotomized into groups according to age (19-25, 26-45, and 46-64 years old), according to relationship status (those not in a relationship and those who are), groups with lower and higher educational attainment and groups of non-working and working participants. For the data collection, occasional sampling was conducted in seven charitable organizations in the regions of Prešov, Košice, and Banská Bystrica in Slovakia. In addition, voluntary response sampling was used through an online survey. In order to assess the perceived causes of poverty, the Attributions for Poverty questionnaire (Bullock et al., 2003) was used. The subjective assessment of poverty was measured by the question “In your economic situation, is it possible to make ends meet?” (Nygård et al., 2017). The equivalent disposable household income of each respondent was calculated as an indicator of objective poverty. The research data were analysed in the statistical program IBM SPSS Statistics. Both a Welch t-test and Mann-Whitney U test were used to verify the first goal of the study. For the second goal, a multiple hierarchical linear regression analysis stepwise method was used. Results: There were statistically significant differences found in the structural as well as fatalistic perceived causes of poverty between the objectively poor and objectively non-poor as well as between the subjectively poor and subjectively non-poor. The objectively poor and subjectively poor were found to have higher scores in both the structural and fatalistic perceived causes of poverty in comparison with the objectively non-poor and subjectively non-poor. There were no statistically significant differences found between the objectively poor and objectively non-poor nor between the subjectively poor and subjectively non-poor in the individualistic perceived causes of poverty. The results of the regression analysis showed that when the 9 predictors were inputted in three blocks (1. gender, age-3 groups, marital status, 2. education, employment status, 3. objective poverty, subjective poverty), none of them appeared to be significant in terms of the individualistic perceived causes of poverty. For the structural as well as fatalistic perceived causes of poverty only one of the input predictors was shown to be positively significant. Subjective poverty was found to explain 4.2% of the variance in structural and 8.3% in the fatalistic perceived causes of poverty. Conclusion: The findings provide insight into the widely up to now unexplored issue of perceived causes of poverty in Slovakia. Future research on the perceived causes of poverty among the poor could focus on self-assignment of the participant to either the group of the poor or non-poor, distinguish between one's own poverty and the poverty of others and include other variables such as ethnicity, religion, belief in a just world as well as life satisfaction.

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