Welfare Attitudes Research Articles

Policy Assessment and Recommendations for Forestry-Based Ecological Poverty Alleviation: An Empirical Study from the Prefectures of Nujiang and Aba, Southwestern China

China has adopted a long-term campaign against poverty. In recent decades, there is an increasing understanding that ecological poverty alleviation can meet the dual goals of environmental protection and rural poverty reduction. China is pivoting towards forestry-based poverty reduction in the severely poverty-stricken areas. However, several key factors remain elusive, including the extent to which the poor people benefit from forestry programs, whether they are satisfied with the policies and whether the policies are effective for poverty alleviation. Based on data collected through a questionnaire survey of 79 households in the prefectures of Nujiang and Aba, southwestern China, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach was used to examine the effectiveness of the forestry-based poverty alleviation policy. The results showed that four poverty alleviation pathways, including industry, employment, micro-finance and pairing assistance in villages, had obviously increased the incomes of the filing poor households and solved the problem of “Two Worries-free and Three Guarantees”. The poor were satisfied with the forestry-based ecological poverty alleviation policies and these policies had good effects in fighting against poverty. However, there are still some shortcomings, such as a lack of active participation, imperfect targeted identification, lack of funds and limited sources of funds during the policy implementation. Our results highlight the importance of the forestry industry and the public welfare position in the alleviation of poverty in the poverty-stricken areas. Synergies between ecological protection and poverty reduction are possible through sound forestry-based policies. This article recommends five policies to simultaneously realize the potential of poverty alleviation and environment protection through forestry development.

Эпидемии в России и Европе: социальный ретроспективный анализ

the article deals with the problem of combating COVID-19 on the example of historical pages of the fight against epidemiological diseases from the experience of Russia and Europe. The entire world community is concerned that modern humanity, feeling all the hardships of the pandemic, will enter such a psychological state that it will not be able to solve vital and important problems in all spheres of society. We are already faced with the fact that the younger generation looks at this problem aloofly and does not strive to overcome fear, which eventually leads to depression. The historical chronicle shows that in ancient times, diseases oppressed people; people, being in a stressful state, thought that the “end of the world” had come and there was no more future, no place for knowledge and education. However, scientists, thinkers, and doctors were looking for a panacea for terrible ailments and methods of treating the socio-psychological state of people. The current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic shows an identical picture of the solution to the problem. Statesmen, together with doctors, strive to do everything to save people from this terrible disease. The authors, studying scientific and historical materials, expressed their thoughts that today it is important, based on history, to take care of the health of the peoples of the world, conducting a peaceful policy in a single commonwealth, taking care of the welfare, cleanliness and good attitude to each other – only by acting in this way will humanity preserve all the values created by their ancestors, pass on their cultural heritage to their descendants.

Assessing the relationship between client-perpetrated violence and intentions to leave child welfare

ABSTRACT Using a sample of 705 early-career child welfare workers, client-perpetrated violence (CPV), a form of workplace violence, was examined to determine whether CPV experiences differ by worker responsibilities and demographic characteristics and how CPV influences workers’ intent to leave their child welfare positions. Results showed that protective investigators experienced more nonphysical violence (being yelled at or cursed at), while those providing longer-term case management services experienced more physical assaults. Analyses indicated no significant relationships between CPV and intent to leave, although there were significant differences in worker characteristics and the type of CPV experienced. Implications for training and organizational responses are discussed.

Multifaceted effects of globalisation on welfare attitudes: When winners and losers join forces

How does economic globalisation influence individuals’ welfare state preferences? Moving beyond the unidimensional understanding of globalisation exposure, we intersect two dimensions of exposure perceptions (gain vs loss and individual vs societal impacts) and propose a novel typology: collective winner, lone winner, lone loser and collective loser. We then explain the preference gap among losers (collective losers vis-à-vis lone losers) and among winners (collective winners vis-à-vis lone winners) by considering three distinct motivations for welfare state support: compensation, risk-pooling and inequality reduction. We illustrate the usefulness of our typology using an original survey in South Korea. We find that lone winners are far more supportive of welfare spending than collective winners. At the same time, collective losers are found to be much more supportive of welfare spending than lone losers. We provide some first-cut evidence that the insurance-seeking motivation common to lone winners and collective losers drive their welfare state support.

Animal Welfare Attitudes of Pet Owners: An Investigation in Central and Western of Turkey

Today with the start of global pandemics, the concept of “One health-One welfare” is becoming a fact of life as never before. Responsible ownership and good care duty do affect the health and welfare of pet animals, one of the stakeholders of social life. In this study, pet owners' attitudes towards animal welfare were examined. The research was carried out in İzmir, Ankara and Afyonkarahisar that are located in the Central and Western parts of Turkey. Animal Welfare Attitude Scale (AWAS) was applied to pet owners who voluntarily participated in the study. According to the results obtained in the cognitive dimension of the AWAS, pet owners think that animal welfare is affected mostly by housing, feeding and health conditions, and less by slaughter, sacrifice or naming of animals. Findings regarding the behavioral dimension demonstrated that pet owners treat their pets and street animals well but they do not support non-governmental organizations (NGO) working for animal rights and animal protection and they are not willing to purchase and pay more for foods produced under animal friendly standartds. Also, it has been observed that pet owners believe animals are sensitive beings and have rights like humans, but they agree little with the judgment that animals are created for humans. It was concluded that pet owners can support strategies to increase animal welfare and, increasing pet owners' knowledge and awareness relationships between animals and humans, values and norms as well as NGOs can provide valuable opportunities for increasing animal welfare in Turkey.

A Study of Multi-group Path Analysis on Difference of Welfare Attitude between North Korean Defectors and South Koreans

A Study of Multi-group Path Analysis on Difference of Welfare Attitude between North Korean Defectors and South Koreans

Social Welfare Attitudes and Immigrants as a Target Population: Experimental Evidence

What makes some Americans assume that social welfare programs will benefit immigrants rather than native-born Americans? How do these assumptions shape their attitudes about policy? Recent observational research has shown that immigration attitudes and social welfare attitudes are strongly correlated, but we lack evidence of exactly how this relationship works. In this pre-registered survey experiment, I study respondents’ assumptions about beneficiaries of a generic social welfare policy, and test the effects of different “threat” primes on the assumption that the policy benefits immigrants rather than native-born Americans. I find that a prime constructing immigrants as a fiscal threat increases the likelihood that a respondent will make this assumption, while a prime emphasizing cultural or demographic threat has no significant effect. These effects vary by geographic context, but not by relevant attitudes. Attitudes about immigration become an important predictor of policy approval when this assumption is triggered.

한국 사회의 복지태도에 대한 연구 : 정부의 책임성, 증세, 조세시스템에 대한 태도를 중심으로

본 연구는 구체적인 복지프로그램에 대한 정부의 책임성 인식-복지지출 증대를 위한 증세 필요성-조세시스템에 대한 태도를 동일한 수준에서 조합하여 복지지출과 조세시스템에 대한 한국사회의 인식구조를 파악하고자 했다. 특히 개별복지프로그램과 증세 필요성, 그리고 조세시스템과 관련된 태도변수를 하나의 변수로 통합하거나 개별변수별로 분석을 하는 기존의 접근방법을 보완하여 잠재집단분석을 통해 한국사회의 복지와 조세에 대한 인식구조를 파악하고자 했다. 또한 조세시스템의 조세집행력과 공정성에 대한 태도를 측정함으로써 복지지출 확대를 위한 증세의 정당성을 확보하는 데 있어 중요한 조세시스템에 대해 사람들은 어떻게 인식하고 있는지 알아보고자 했다. 분석결과 잠재집단분석을 통해 전체 응답자 중 약 66%는 재분배와 보험의 기능을 국가의 책임이라고 인식하고 있으며 복지지출 증대를 위한 증세에 대해서도 대체로 긍정적인 태도를 보이고 있다는 사실을 알 수 있다. 그러나 조세시스템과 관련해서는 전체 응답자의 58%가 조세시스템에 대한 불신이 강하기 때문에 복지지출 증대를 위한 증세를 추진하는 과정에서 부정적인 입장을 취하거나 적극적으로 반대할 가능성이 높다. 잠재집단분석에서 도출된 세집단에 속할 확률에 유의미한 영향을 미치는 응답자의 인구 · 사회 · 경제적 특성은 무엇인지 알아본 결과 자영업자에 비해 상용직과 임시/일용직 근로자와 같은 임금소득자가 복지국가로서의 정부의 역할에 대해서는 긍정적이지만 조세시스템에 대해 부정적인 태도를 보이는 집단에 속할 확률이 높다. 또한 세금징수를 담당하는 정부에 대한 신뢰가 낮을수록 조세시스템의 조세집행력과 공정성에 대한 태도 역시 부정적일 가능성이 크다. 결국 징세를 담당하는 정부가 조세시스템에 대한 신뢰를 얼마만큼 회복하느냐에 따라 증세 가능성이 달라질 것으로 예측할 수 있다.

“First the Grub, then the Morals”? Disentangling the Self-Interest and Ideological Drivers of Attitudes Towards Demanding Activation Policies in Belgium

AbstractFollowing the shift towards an activating role of the European welfare states, there is increasing scholarly interest in public support for demanding activation policies that impose obligations on welfare recipients. Borrowing the classical theoretical frameworks used in welfare attitudes research, we aim to disentangle the effect of self-interest and ideological beliefs on support for demanding activation. Using data from the Belgian National Election Study (2014), we find that support for demanding activation is strongly related to authoritarian dispositions, work ethic and rejection of egalitarianism. For the social-structural variables, we find direct as well as indirect (that is, mediated by the ideological dimensions) effects. Controlling for ideology, social categories that are potentially most affected by welfare obligations – i.e. those currently unemployed, with a previous experience of unemployment and low-income individuals – are more likely to oppose demanding policies, which can be interpreted as a self-interest effect. The effects of educational level, conversely, are primarily mediated and should be understood in terms of ideological preferences rather than self-interest. Our results indicate that, when analysing support for specific welfare policies, attention needs to be paid to the interplay between self-interest and ideological preferences.

Investigating the Welfare Deservingness of Single Mothers: Public Image and Deservingness Perceptions in Hungary

The literature on single mothers’ welfare deservingness is dominated by analyses carried out in Anglo-Saxon countries. Those analyses tend to point to an undeserving public image of single mothers. This negative perception is often explained by the identity gap between middle-class voters and poor single mothers, which is partly fuelled by conservative family values in mainstream society. This study investigates the issue in Hungary, where the government has strongly promoted traditional family ideals and significantly increased the support for affluent two-parent families in the past decade. First, the study explores the public image of single mothers based on open-ended and closed-ended survey questions. Second, it measures the perceived deservingness of the group based on five criteria (control, attitude, reciprocity, identity, and need) (van Oorschot 2000) by using the same open-ended question data and a series of other survey data. The results show that single mothers have a coherent deserving public image in Hungary: they have a hard life, do everything to make a living for their family, and lack appropriate financial and emotional support. Results, however, also show that public attitudes are in line with the government’s conservative family policy, and there is, indeed, an identity gap between single-mother families and the public. Nevertheless, this identity gap is not enough to generate negative welfare attitudes towards single mothers because they are perceived as deserving regarding the other four deservingness criteria.

Comparison of the Welfare Attitudes determination between livelihood Recipients and Non-Recipients: Focusing on Sociological Analysis

Comparison of the Welfare Attitudes determination between livelihood Recipients and Non-Recipients: Focusing on Sociological Analysis

Authoritarianism, Prejudice, and Support for Welfare Chauvinism in the United States

Abstract This article examines the role of authoritarianism in shaping individual policy support for creating a waiting period before legal immigrants can access welfare programs. I use logistic regression models to analyse the opinions of non-Latino whites from the 1992 American National Election Study (ANES). I find that authoritarianism is related to a waiting period before immigrants can access welfare benefits, despite a significant number of non-authoritarians also preferring a waiting period. This effect is robust with the inclusion of several traditional predictors of welfare attitudes.

Welfare attitude and economic developmentalism in new democratic developmental welfare state: an examination of the Taiwanese case

ABSTRACT Do political democratization and the worsening income inequality result in the increase in public support for redistribution in East Asian democratic developmental welfare states? This study aims to examine atypical case of new democratic developmental welfare state, Taiwan, through quantitative analysis. Our empirical findings demonstrated that the perception of income inequality will cause dissatisfaction with the performance of the democratic regime, and then, erode public support for redistribution. This study argues that the mitigation of income inequality would be helpful to increase political satisfaction and for welfare state building for new democracies.

The impact of the growing housing price on welfare attitudes

The impact of the growing housing price on welfare attitudes

Individuals with Psychopathic Traits and Poor Attitudes towards Animals Can Recognise Infant Features But Give Them Reduced Attentional Priority.

Simple SummaryCertain facial characteristics in companion animals are perceived by humans as being ‘cute’. This includes having large eyes, a round head and a small nose and mouth. These characteristics, which are shared with human infants, trigger care-giving responses in humans. Despite this, however, companion animal abuse occurs. The aim of this research was to better understand cognitive processes of people with pro-social personality traits and positive attitudes towards animals compared to those with anti-social personality traits and negative attitudes towards animals. This was done by assessing participants’ ability to detect cues of cuteness in animal and human infant faces (study 1) and by assessing attention to cuteness cues via an eye-tracking task (study 2). Findings indicate that the ability to detect cuteness cues is widespread, regardless of personality or attitudes. However, individuals with anti-social personality traits and negative attitudes towards animals chose to pay less attention to ‘cute’ stimuli in the eye-tracking task. This proof of concept study is an initial step in determining how individuals ‘at risk’ of committing animal abuse process information on infant features in animals. Infant features are physical traits that are characteristic of human infants and include facial features such as large and low-lying eyes, and a small nose and mouth. Animals possessing high levels of infant features elicit care-giving responses in humans. Despite this, animal cruelty is a common occurrence. The aim of this research was to determine whether the ability to recognise and/or attend to infant features is linked to subclinical psychopathic traits and attitudes towards animals. Using a community sample, participants (n = 387) completed a cuteness forced-choice task. Self-reported psychopathy and attitude towards animals were not related to the participants’ ability to detect cues of cuteness in human infants and animals. In a second study, participants (n = 142) were screened for low versus high primary psychopathy and low versus high animal attitude scores. A Psychopathy-Attitude Composite score was created and a subset of participants (n = 50) from the upper and lower quartiles completed a free-viewing eye-tracking task where ‘Cute’, ‘Neutral, ‘Monetary’ and ‘Control’ images were presented in pairs. Higher levels of psychopathic traits and an anti-animal welfare attitude were associated with decreased attention to ‘Cute’ images in terms of decreased dwell time, mean fixation duration and mean fixation count, measures of voluntary attention. There were a number of interactions between Psychopathy-Attitude Composite classification and attention to each image category in terms of dwell time, first fixation duration, mean fixation duration and fixation count. These findings support the theory that individuals with psychopathic traits recognise facial cues of vulnerability but choose to give them reduced attentional priority. This may have implications for animal welfare.

Education as a tool for improving canine welfare: Evaluating the effect of an education workshop on attitudes to responsible dog ownership and canine welfare in a sample of Key Stage 2 children in the United Kingdom.

One of the core objectives of many animal-welfare organisations is to achieve improvements in animal welfare through school education programmes. However, whilst many charities and organisations develop and deliver these educational activities, impact relating to specific animal welfare attitudes and behaviours remains largely undescribed. This study evaluated the effects of an hour-long dog welfare workshop delivered to children aged 7–11, evaluating 2732 learners in state primary schools across the UK. Two types of workshop were evaluated; “Be Dog Smart” (BDS) and “Responsible Dog Ownership” (RDO). This study assessed short-term impact on attitude outcomes, as a first step in developing a full education monitoring and evaluation framework. Learners within each class were randomly assigned to two groups; one completing an attitude-based questionnaire before (control) and the other after the workshop (treatment). Dog ownership status, age, gender, and social deprivation (measured as access to free school meals) were collected for all participants. Questionnaire scores were compared between treatment and control groups. Mean scores were significantly different (BDS p<0.001; Cohen’s D 0.65; RDO p<0.001; Cohen’s D 0.51) between control (BDS 13.57 ± 3.15; RDO 22.97 ± 4.78) and treatment groups (BDS 15.61 ± 3.10; RDO 25.47 ± 5.06) for both workshops, suggesting workshops effectively convey key messages and improve learner attitudes concerning dogs. Gender, age and social deprivation were found to significantly influence questionnaire responses. These findings contribute to a broader effort to improve canine welfare via childhood education while also demonstrating the feasibility of effective monitoring and evaluation during operational delivery of a schools workshop programme. Ongoing impact assessment is important in ensuring successful development, delivery and refinement of educational programmes to maximise the probabilty of positive changes in participants. Further work is needed to evaluate longer term impact, and ensure that desired influences on human behaviour change, and animal welfare, are achieved.

What, where, and how: drivers of welfare attitudes toward work-family reconciliation policies in South European societies

ABSTRACT With increasing female labour market participation, welfare states in Europe have aimed to reorient their policies in order to face a newly emerging social risk – difficulties to combine work and family roles. Yet, they differ in the extent of this adaptation, which has been associated with multiple factors including the influence of cultural values or ideas towards care. In this article, we employ the European Social Survey (Round 8) to examine whether and how not only self-interests but also values influence public willingness to pay for extending state’s work-family reconciliation policies in Italy, Portugal, and Spain, where care provision traditionally was in the family. Although South European welfare states are often considered to be similarly influenced by traditional gender and family values, the findings of this study contribute to the evidence that there are important differences between them.

Assessment of Turkish consumer attitudes using an Animal Welfare Attitude Scale (AWAS)

The aim of this study was to examine Turkish consumer attitudes towards animal welfare in terms of cognitive, affective and behavioral dimensions, using a bespoke Animal Welfare Attitude Scale (AWAS). An overall consumer attitude was also determined. The Delphi technique was used to establish an item pool to develop a questionnaire for the construction of the AWAS. This questionnaire was later used for data collection. A total of 2295 consumers were surveyed in 14 cities, in the 7 regions of Turkey. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), reliability analysis, Ward's hierarchical clustering method and One-way ANOVA were used to validate the questionnaire, and to analyze data. Results of the EFA allowed for allocation of 42 items collected under 3 dimensions (cognitive, affective and behavioral), that explained 72% of the total variance of the model. This factor structure was subsequently confirmed by a CFA performed on a different sample of 425 consumers. The Cronbach's Alpha coefficient for AWAS was calculated at 0.829. These results confirmed that the developed AWAS had a valid and reliable scale. The questionnaire showed that consumers' attitudes towards animal welfare were more negative at the behavioral dimension, than either at the cognitive or affective dimensions. Consumers in Turkey were ultimately divided into three groups according to their overall attitudes towards animal welfare as impassive, moderate or sensitive. One-third of Turkish consumers placed in the sensitive group, thus emphasizing a potential niche for animal-friendly food marketing in Turkey.

Welfare Attitudes Towards Anti-poverty Policies in China: Economical Individualism, Social Collectivism and Institutional Differences

Public attitudes towards welfare programs is a crucial topic in the field of social policy research. Current studies on welfare attitudes has long been a lack of an explicit conceptualization, and mainly conducted at the individual level with the focus on self-interest. This study distinguished the dimensions of welfare attitudes into responsibility, efficiency and effectiveness, and examined the factors that influence welfare attitudes towards anti-poverty policies in China. Data used in this study came from Chinese National Survey of Public Welfare Attitudes in 2018 with a final sample size of 8296 respondents from three deliberately selected provinces in China. It concluded that welfare attitudes share the traits of economical individualism, social collectivism and institutional differences. Positive perception of work ethics and social cognition about income inequality were two important factors associated with welfare attitudes towards anti-poverty policy. People who were against indolence, idleness and male breadwinner and who were highly sensitive of income inequality were more supportive of the notion that government is responsible for protecting their livelihood, nevertheless, less satisfied with the current standard of substance allowance and performance of policy implementation, indicating an orientation of both individualism and collectivism of welfare attitudes. Besides, welfare attitudes were also motivated by institutional differences such as regional disparities and migrant identity. Therefore, this study suggests that the government should be need-oriented in dealing with of the different dimensions of poverty, and should establish a more unified and generous social welfare system that benefits both the natives and migrants.

Association between individualism and welfare attitudes: An analysis of citizens’ attitudes towards the state’s welfare responsibility

The present study examines the association between individualistic values and citizens´ attitudes towards the state’s welfare responsibility (welfare attitudes). This study also examines the association between political placement and welfare attitudes. Data from the European Social Survey (N = 37,743 in 20 countries) are analyzed using a two-level regression analysis. The findings indicate that individualism at the cultural culture is a significant factor in terms of individuals’ attitudes to welfare, in that the higher the level of individualism, the lesser the likelihood that the state’s welfare responsibility is supported. On the other hand, citizens’ attitudes towards state responsibility for welfare are associated with the political placement of those citizens. Politically, people leaning to the right have a lower degree of interest in the state’s welfare responsibility. Furthermore, the degree of individualism modifies the association at the individual level of political placement and welfare attitudes. There is a greater attitudinal difference between the supporters of right-wing and left-wing political views in individualistic countries than in collectivist countries. From a social policy perspective, this study emphasizes the association of individualism and welfare attitudes. The results suggest that social policy is based more on national cultural values than one might assume.