Perceptions Of Inequality Research Articles

What's the Beef in South Korea Protests?: The Technical, Psychometric, and Sociocultural Dimensions of News Coverage of Risk

ABSTRACTMillions of South Koreans took to the streets for more than 2 months in 2008 ostensibly in protest over their government's handling of beef imports from the United States. This study examines the technical, psychometric, and sociocultural dimensions of these public protests by conducting a content analysis of the coverage of the English language daily newspaper The Korea Herald. The results suggest that the scarcity of technical risk assessment information and the preponderance of normative or outrage factors in the newspaper's coverage (lack of trust in government, perceptions of inequity, and unequal benefits accruing to both nations) may have fueled public anxiety and anger. The findings also point to social, cultural, and historical factors that may explain why allowing U.S. beef into the Korean market elicited strong public reactions.

Fronteras simbólicas y clases medias. Movilidad social en Chile

A más de tres décadas de la aplicación de las políticas de ajuste estructural en Chile, las clases medias han aumentado su peso en la estructura social y han cambiado su sector económico, empleo y trayectorias de movilidad social. Este artículo analiza la percepción de las fronteras simbólicas que, emergentes de estos procesos macrosociales, van moldeando las subjetividades de los sujetos pertenecientes a las clases medias en procesos de movilidad social ascendente y se relacionan con las percepciones sobre la desigualdad. Para esto se presenta un análisis cualitativo de casos, en los que destacan componentes discursivos como la meritocracia, el esfuerzo y la idea de “barreras/obstáculos” como ejes discursivos claves. Este artículo se inscribe dentro de los recientes estudios sobre clases medias para el caso chileno, enfocados en los aspectos culturales tras la reproducción de la estratificación y desigualdad en Chile.

The Perception of Inequality of Opportunity in Europe

Does the way scholars measure inequality of opportunity correspond to how people perceive it? What other factors influence individual perception of this phenomenon? To answer these questions we must first clarify how scholars define and measure inequality of opportunity. We discuss the possible mechanisms linking objective measures to subjective perception of the phenomenon, then propose a measure of perceived inequality of opportunity, and finally test our hypothesis by merging data coming from two sources: the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (2011) and the International Social Survey Programme (2009). We suggest that the prevailing perception of the degree of unequal opportunity in a large sample of respondents is only weakly correlated with its objective measure. We estimate a multilevel model considering both individual and country level controls to explain individual perception of unequal opportunity. Our estimates suggest that the two most adopted measures of inequality of opportunity have not clear role in explaining its perception. Conversely, other country level variables and personal experiences of intergenerational social mobility are important determinants of how inequality of opportunity is perceived.

Perceived inequality and support for trade liberalization in Latin America

Purpose Previous studies have focused on individual preferences regarding trade liberalization without considering an individual’s perceptions of income inequality. This study aims to utilize the 2007 Latinobarametro to test a hypothesis regarding the relationship between an individual’s perceived income inequality and their support for trade liberalization in their country. The authors focus primarily on Latin America, as it is a region that has a long, entrenched tradition of income inequality with far reaching political and economic consequences. It is also a region that is relatively new to trade liberalization, as it only began to open up in the 1980s, after a decade-long commitment to import substitution industrialization. Design/methodology/approach The authors utilize a logit model to analyze the 2007 Latinobarametro data to test the hypothesis. Findings The authors find that individuals who perceive income inequality to be fair in their country are more likely to support trade liberalization, whereas those who perceive income inequality to be unfair are less likely to support liberalization. Originality/value This study allows for a more complete portrait of what influences individual preferences toward trade policy and advocates for policy elites to be more responsive to their citizens’ concerns about trade liberalization.

INCOME INEQUALITIES: AXIOMS OF INCOME INEQUALITY MEASURES AND PEOPLE'S PERCEPTIONS

Studies show that people perceive income inequality differently than most popular income inequality measures and axioms (postulated properties of inequality) indicate. This article synthesizes and reviews different results on income inequality perception. It presents basic income inequality axioms and analyses the level of support found in multiple studies. The paper shows that while answers to particular questions seldom perfectly agree with income inequality measures, the general pattern of respondents' answers is strongly correlated with these measures. It also argues that the observed differences can be partially explained by following Amartya Sen’s suggestion that income inequality is a multidimensional concept (1973, p. 48).

AFYONKARAHİSAR’DA BAZI MESLEK GRUPLARININ CİNSİYETE DUYARLI BÜTÇELEME ALGISI

In this study, there are seven different occupational groups that are nurses, teachers, employees of the revenue office, theology, Muslim Cleric, Teaching Assistant-Research Assistant, faculty members and students. It was examined that how their perspective on gender equality and their gender- sensitive budgeting perception. In this study how participants looked at gender equality in Turkey and if there is gender inequality in Turkey which mechanism should be use to prevent it. Besides, It was studied to determine about how the central government budget should be used to constitute for gender equality. In the study, it was observed that the perception of serious inequalities between women and men in Turkey. For fixing this perception, it is necessary to do studies primarily starting from family at all parts of society in order to achieve the objectives of this study. The achievement of these studies depend largely on public expenditures and public revenues. The study, while made in Afyonkarahisar, is important because it directs the practises occured in Turkey.

Inequalities in a National Health Care System From the Perspective of Social Workers in Israel.

This study explores social workers' perceptions of inequalities in Israel's national health care system. Unlike previous studies, which relied on patients' and practitioners' reports, it is based on interviews with 60 social workers in hospitals and ambulatory clinics. The findings show that although Israeli law provides for (almost) free, universal medical care, the treatment of persons lacking in money, education, and social affiliation may be compromised by difficulties in paying for medications, treatments, and travel to and from hospital; by difficulties in understanding doctors' instructions; and by reluctance to ask questions. Most doctors tend to focus exclusively on patients' medical needs, seem to lack sympathy with less educated patients, have little understanding of the life circumstances that impinge on their compliance, and make little effort to speak to them in the language they can understand. Practical suggestions are made with regard to the need to turn doctors' attention to their patients' non-medical needs.

Vietnamese teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching English as a Foreign Language

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of culture on the sense of self-efficacy in teaching English as a Foreign Language of a group of university teachers in Vietnam. Research exploring the relationship between culture and self-efficacy is extremely rare despite the acknowledged importance of culture in the formation of self-efficacy beliefs.Design/methodology/approachThis study took the form of qualitative research with diverse, data collection instruments: individual interviews, focus group discussions, observations and journaling.FindingsFindings indicate that certain features of the Vietnamese cultural context impacted on the way the study teachers constructed their sense of self-efficacy. Specifically, under the influence of a Vietnamese sense of belonging, the study teachers tended to rely more on efficacy-building information from other people rather than from themselves. The perception of inequality in power may have heightened negative emotional arousal, thus contributing to a negative sense of self-efficacy among the teachers. The Vietnamese concept of face and the high status of teachers in the social hierarchy in part mediated teachers’ sense of self-efficacy.Social implicationsThe perceived burden of performing both parenting and teaching roles and responsibilities may have diminished the self-efficacy in teaching of female teachers.Originality/valueThe contribution and implications of the study are discussed.

All of Us Are Vulnerable, But Some Are More Vulnerable than Others: The Political Ambiguity of Vulnerability Studies, an Ambivalent Critique

This paper raises several concerns about vulnerability as an alternative language to conceptualize injustice and politicize its attendant injuries. First, the project of resignifying “vulnerability” by emphasizing its universality and amplifying its generative capacity, I suggest, might dilute perceptions of inequality and muddle important distinctions among specific vulnerabilities, as well as differences between those who are injurable and those who are already injured. Vulnerability scholars, moreover, have yet to elaborate the path from acknowledging constitutive vulnerability to addressing concrete injustices. Second, vulnerability studies respond to, and have been shaped by, debates in the 1980s and 1990s over oppression, identity and agency. This genealogy needs to be acknowledged and evaluated. As I demonstrate, prominent theorists define vulnerability in contradistinction to victimization, adopting neo-liberal formulations of victims and victimhood. Finally, I turn to address the politics of vulnerability. At issue are not simply matters of utility or programmes for implementation, but the fraught relationship among ontology, ethics and politics, which I address through an engagement with Rancière's conception of the political and the case of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Cultura democrática y percepciones de la desigualdad: México y Chile en perspectiva comparada

This article examines contrasts between democratic culture and perceptions of inequality in Mexico and Chile. Since the beginning of their transition to democracy and up to the present day, both nations share an increase in aspirations to equality while they differ regarding the strategies to reach it. Whereas political culture in Chile tends towards state intervention in distributive matters and non-conventional political participation, Mexico is undergoing a moment in which both satisfactions with democracy and support for it are declining, and formal and informal political participation have weakened. In this scenario, the search for equality privileges competition and large income differentials as incentives to reach it, features that ultimately legitimize inequality and evidence a much more individualized and less democratic society than the Chilean one.

Are health care inequalities unfair? A study on public attitudes in 23 countries.

BackgroundIn this article we focus on the following aims: (1) to analyze national and welfare state variations in the public perception of income-related health care inequalities, (2) to analyze associations of sociodemographic, socioeconomic, health-related, and health care factors with the perception of health care inequalities.MethodsData were taken from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), an annually repeated cross-sectional survey based on nationally representative samples. 23 countries (N = 37,228) were included and assigned to six welfare states. Attitude towards income-related health care inequalities was assessed by asking: “Is it fair or unfair that people with higher incomes can afford better health care than people with lower incomes?” with response categories ranging from “very fair” (1) to “very unfair” (5). On the individual level, sociodemographic (gender, age), socioeconomic (income, education) health-related (self-rated health), and health care factors (health insurance coverage, financial barriers to health care) were introduced.ResultsAbout two-thirds of the respondents in all countries think that it is unfair when people with higher incomes can afford better health care than people with lower incomes. Percentages vary between 42.8 in Taiwan and 84 in Slovenia. In terms of welfare states, this proportion is higher in Conservative, South European, and East European regimes than in East Asian, Liberal, and Social-Democratic regimes. Multilevel logistic regression analyses show that women, people affected by a low socioeconomic status, poor health, insufficient insurance coverage, and foregone care are more likely to perceive income-related health care inequalities as unfair.ConclusionsIn most countries a majority of the population perceives income-related health care inequalities as unfair. Large differences between countries were observed. Welfare regime classification is important for explaining the variation across countries.

Local Politics, Local Citizenship? Socialized Governance in Contemporary China

AbstractThe demise of collective units that attach citizens to the state in China has been overstated; the hegemonic form of Chinese citizenship today links participation and welfare entitlement to membership in a collective unit in a specific locality. This article presents an ethnographic account of the operation of this “normal” form of local citizenship in resident and villager committees in Tianjin. These committees combine participatory and welfare dimensions of citizenship in one institutional setting. Here, citizens are bound to the state through a face-to-face politics that acts both as a mechanism of control and a channel for claims-making, a mode of rule I term “socialized governance,” which blurs the boundaries between political compliance and social conformity, and makes social norms a strong force in the citizenship order. While variably achieved in practice, this form of citizenship represents an ideal that shapes conditions for politics and perceptions of inequality.

An examination of actor-partner social support effects on HIV-related problems and interpersonal outcomes among a sample of HIV-positive African American dyads.

Social support is an important resource that has been associated with better mental and physical health outcomes among HIV-positive people. However, researchers have not adequately explored how social support functions among HIV-positive African Americans. The purpose of the current study was to understand whether HIV-related support resources are associated with relational functioning and HIV-related problems among a sample of HIV-infected African American dyads. Exactly 34 HIV-infected (i.e., seroconcordant) dyads compromised of HIV-positive African American adults and their HIV-positive adult "informal supporters" from 3 Midwestern urban cities completed psychosocial questionnaires and a communication task. Using the actor-partner interdependence model, we analyzed dyadic data to determine whether there were actor and/or partner effects within dyadic relationships on measures of conflict and HIV-related problems, communication about these problems, and health symptoms. We found significant negative relationships between perceived support and HIV-related problems and perceptions of problem inequity within dyads and a positive relationship between perceived support and communication about these problems within dyads. Contrary to our expectations, we found no relationship between social support and HIV symptoms, relational conflict, or perceptions about dyadic partners' HIV-related problems. Although our study precludes drawing causal conclusions, we found evidence of a relationship between the personal experience of HIV-related problems, communication about these problems, and perceptions of social support among a small sample of HIV-infected African American dyads. These findings suggest the need to consider how support-related communication within HIV-infected dyads might influence and be influenced by problem perceptions.

Inequity Leads to Distress and a Reduction in Satisfaction: Evidence From a Priming Experiment

Considerable research has shown that perceptions of inequity in relationships are associated with distress and relationship dissatisfaction, thus providing support for equity theory’s predictions. The evidence, however, is based primarily on correlational data, making it difficult to determine causality. The reverse causal direction could also explain the correlational findings—dissatisfaction could lead to perceptions of inequity. This study employed experimental priming, in which participants wrote a narrative about a past situation in their relationship, either an underbenefiting situation, an overbenefiting situation, or an equity situation (randomly assigned). Participants who were primed to think about a past underbenefiting inequity reported more distress than those who were primed to think about a past overbenefiting inequity; those who were primed for equity were the least distressed. In addition, the equity/inequity prime affected participants’ score on a satisfaction scale completed in regard to their current relationship. Those who wrote about a past underbenefiting inequity reported lower relationship satisfaction than those who wrote about either an equity or an overbenefiting inequity. The results of this study suggest that making salient inequity situations from one’s relationship may have negative effects on the relationship.

What Drives Governmental Redistribution?

This paper investigates the major drivers of governmental redistribution. Extended and harmonised data on effective redistribution recently provided by the newest version of the Standardized World Income Inequality Database allows for the assessment of the origins of governmental redistribution for a broad sample of countries. Our findings confirm the Meltzer-Richard hypothesis, pointing to a robust positive relationship between market inequality and redistribution. We show that perceptions of inequality are often biased and that the redistribution-enhancing effect of gross inequality is even stronger when individuals are aware of national income disparities. The results also suggest that top income shares tend to impede redistributive policies.

Perception of Inequality and Reality: An International Comparison

Based on a cross-national comparison, there is virtually no empirical relationship between the actual size of income inequality within a country and how critically people view these income differences. This finding is revealed by subjective inequality data on 23 European countries and the US. Instead, views on income distribution can be far better explained by the subjective perception of inequality within a society. Similarly, redistributive preferences are less influenced by actual distribution than by perceived inequality.

Walking down 'Via Dolorosa' from primary health care to the specialty pain clinic - patient and professional perceptions of inequity in rehabilitation of chronic pain.

To analyse patient and professional perceptions about (in)equity of care and rehabilitation of chronic pain patients from primary health care to assessment at a specialty rehabilitation clinic. This qualitative study consists one focus group interview with eight general practitioners who refer patients to pain rehabilitation clinics, 10 individual interviews with patients who were assessed at a pain rehabilitation clinic and seven interviews with professionals participating in multimodal assessment teams at a pain rehabilitation clinic. Interview analysis was conducted by the grounded theory method. The core category Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering and pain, captured how gender and sociocultural context may contribute to advantages and disadvantages during patient journeys from primary health care to a pain rehabilitation clinic. Patients and professionals perceived pain as a low-ranking illness, and women and men used different gendered strategies to legitimise the pain and to be taken seriously. Being 'a proper patient ready to change' and having 'likeness' between patients and professionals were viewed as advantageous in rehabilitation of pain patients. Patients with higher educational levels were perceived as easier to interact with and had better access to health care. Professional thoughts about gender norms influenced the rehabilitation options. The rehabilitation programme was seen by several professionals to be better suited for women than men, which could lead to unequal care. From an equity and gender perspective, our study highlights the complexity in rehabilitation of chronic pain patients - both from patient and professional perspectives. Awareness of gendered and the biased preconceptions and norms is crucial when professionals struggle to offer equitable health care and rehabilitation.

Predictors of opposition to and support for the ordination of women: insights from the LDS Church

Female ordination is an important component of gender equality in Christian religious communities. While prior research has examined societal, institutional, and organisational factors that predict changes in ordination policies in Christian denominations, there is very little research examining individuals’ attitudes regarding the ordination of women. In this research, we use data from two surveys of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) to examine the factors that predict attitudes towards the ordination of women using two polity-specific measures of support or opposition. Results indicate greater support for the ordination of women when framed in a way that takes into account LDS church governance. While several demographic variables predict attitudes towards ordination, the strongest correlate is perceptions of inequality.

Knowledge and common sense of nurses on the health's inequities: an exploratory study.

The data for 2015 show of a general deterioration of living conditions and health of the population in Italy. The possible effects call the nurse to become involved in the subject of health inequalities. The study was designed with the goal of assessing how much the nurses know and perceive the correlation between the state of health of the population and system inequities. An exploratory study was conducted through a bibliographic update compared to previous work and questionnaires in convenience samples of professionals and students of nursing and evaluation of results according to the mixed method perspective. The nursing literature on the quantity is very limited plan. The questionnaire provides useful answers to the evaluation of the perception of inequalities in health in terms of horizontal and vertical equity. Knowledge of health inequalities cannot be on the edge scientific work and the same professional literature. E 'need to reduce the gap between the aspects of values of their profession, which reverberate in the perception of existing inequities, and the full assumption of knowledge related to the socio-economic determinants of health and disease.

A ‘Problem of Fairness’ in the Making: The Transformation of Public Services from the Perspective of Postal Workers

AbstractDuring the last two decades public administration and public services have undergone profound changes with far‐reaching impacts on employment relations and working conditions. The paper presents the perceptions and lived experiences of workers affected by liberalization and privatization of public services. In doing so it focuses on workers’ ideas of fairness and dignity at work using the concepts of distribution, recognition and the public ethos of the common good and linking them to fundamental principles of justice. It is argued that the perception of inequalities as fair, while it is shaped by custom, is also being socially constructed during far‐reaching changes. The analysis is based on a series of qualitative interviews conducted in Austria, Germany and Switzerland with postal‐service workers, a sector well suited for the analysis because of the far‐reaching changes in terms of market regulation, ownership of organizations, labour regulation, employment and working conditions.