Public thinking about poverty: why it matters and how to measure it

Abstract

Meeting the Millennium Development Goals partly depends on not‐profit organizations raising more funds, which in turn depends on having reliable and valid assessments of where donor and recipient perceptions are out‐of‐line. Across samples from a developed economy Australia (n = 754), and a developing economy Malaŵi (n = 387), we explored the factor structure of the ‘Causes of Third‐World Poverty Questionnaire’ (CTWPQ, D. Harper and colleagues, 1990). In addition to four core factors suggested through an original (N = 89) sample from the UK (Blame [1] the Poor, [2] Nature, [3] Third World governments, and [4] International Exploitation), combined Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) differentiate a possible fifth factor germane to the social marketing of aid, blame [5] Conflict. Australians and Malaŵians differed significantly on all five factors, with Malaŵians blaming poverty more on situations and less on the poor themselves, compared to Australian counterparts. Our findings are tentative because the CTWPQ item pool requires expanding to represent underlying constructs more fully. Nonetheless, instruments like the CTWPQ can in future be used to identify and monitor in‐context psychosocial barriers to donation, enabling not‐profit marketing organizations to raise funds more efficiently and effectively. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The perception of the poor: Capturing stereotype content with different measures

“…Bullock, 1995;Cozzarelli, Wilkinson, & Tagler, 2001;Kreidl, 2000;Lott, 2002;Woods, Kurtz-Costes, & Rowley, 2005). Poor individuals are often held to have themselves to blame (Bolitho, Carr, & Fletcher, 2007;Kluegel & Smith, 1986). As a consequence, welfare recipients sense that society sees them as criminals, "milking the system. "…”

“…People often believe that there are several different and complex determinants of economic disadvantage (Kluegel & Smith, 1986). Many nevertheless tend to think that internal causes, such as being irresponsible or lacking willpower, are more important than external causes, such as having a low wage because of injustice in society; Bolitho et al, 2007;Weiner, Osborne, & Rudolph, 2011).…”

Power, Politics, and Political Entrepreneurs: Realising Universal Free Basic Education in Indonesia

“…Public attitudes to international development have been shown to be related to knowledge of development, alongside a wide range of socio-political, sociodemographic and wider attitudinal factors (see for example Stern 1998; Harper et al 1990;Harper 1996;Hine and Montiel 1999;Bolitho et al 2007). Numerous opinion surveys suggest that public understanding of international development among the general public tends to be limited (McDonnell et al 2003;TNS UK 2008;Riddell 2007).…”

“…In the literature, a number of attempts have been made to derive a classification of causes of poverty in developing countries, with the aim of understanding how and why attitudes vary among individuals (see for example Harper et al 1990;Hine and Montiel 1999;Bolitho et al 2007;Panadero and Vazquez 2008). Broadly, these studies identify four explanatory factors: 12…”

“…have strengthened these surveys in a modest way, but their analytical content remains very weak. A parallel literature, predominantly within social psychology, explores understandings of the causes of poverty in developing countries and links to wider social attitudes, for example concepts of global justice, but does not link up explicitly to the aid agenda (see for example Harper et al 1990;Hine and Montiel 1999;Bolitho et al 2007;Panadero and Vazquez 2008).…”