Subjective Perception and Causal Attributions for Poverty in Italy

Abstract

Abstract: Does a relation between subjective perception of one's own socioeconomic status and what one believes about impoverishment exist? Are people's causal attributions for poverty related to their concern for cost of living, their evaluation of economic situation in the last 12 months or prevision for next 12 months? This paper aims at studying these relations in order to better understand people's viewpoint on what originates poverty. The study considers data collected into a research carried out in 2012, in Italy and that has involved around 1000 participants. A Principal Component Analysis has allowed detecting three main components and the following analyses have showed significant relations between attributions and factors like, e.g., the perception of the personal socioeconomic status and concern for cost of living.Keywords: Poverty, Subjective Poverty, Causal Attributions for Poverty, Social PerceptionIntroductionPoverty is one of the most present problems in current public debate: while the World Bank dreams a world free of Poverty (WB, 2014) and keeps on producing policies and intervention to fight it, EU has proclaimed 2010 European year for combating Poverty and Social exclusion (EU, 2011) and has stated the fight to Poverty as one of the seven priorities of EU 2020 (EC, 2014).Although political institutions, in the early 15 years of the third millennium, seem to mobilize against poverty, the basic question about this phenomenon is still unanswered: What is Poverty? Does anyone know an adequate definition of Poverty and the most suitable ways of measuring it?The most usual definitions of poverty, indeed, are based primarily on poor income or assets that do not ensure physical fitness from this point of view (Guillaumont and Wagner, 2014; Turner and Lehning, 2007; Verger and Lollivier, 1999), Poverty is measured primarily through monetary well-being indicators based on income or consumptions (Van Praag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2008; Green and Hulme, 2005; Woolard and Leibbrandt, 1999, Blaylock and Smallwood, 1986).In the last decades, more complex and multidimensional visions of this economic and social phenomenon have emerged (Ravallion, 2011; Sen, 1992; 1999; Sen and Hawthorn, 1988). These approaches have bettered the understanding of Poverty, expanding this concept in many directions (for vulnerability see Gooby, 2004; Castel, 2013; Duclos et al, 2006).Studying psychological dimension of Poverty is one of the most stimulating perspective on this topic (Misra and Tripathi, 2004; Singh and Pandey, 1990) that still owns an enormous application potential (Mohanty and Girishwar, 2000). Differently from 'traditional' measures of poverty, the subjective approach refers to the individual' s perception of his socio-economic status (Van Praag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2008; Garner and Short, 2005; Gustafsson et al., 2004), acknowledging him as the main expert about his well-being.The contribution given by subjective measures lies, mainly, in the opportunities of enriching our view of the phenomenon and of capturing the complexity of a person's well-being (Rojas, 2008). Furthermore, considering subjective perception of individual's status allows comparing the subjective data with objective measures of well-being derived from the data on income or consumption (Ravallion, 2008; 2010).Despite the opportunities introduced by subjective measures, it is necessary to consider also its limitations. Firstly, the subjectivity makes difficult the interpretation and comparison of outcomes between different contexts. The differences in the perception of living conditions, the mix of emotional aspects, personal aspirations and expectations (Crettaz and Suter, 2013), represent some problematic issues that this approach faces. Furthermore, a great degree of variability in answers given by the same respondent if asked in different times often occurs (Kristensen and Westergaard-Nielsen, 2007; Krueger and Schkade, 2008) or individuals may not want to acknowledge their socio-economic status (Santarelli, 2013). …