Causal Attribution for Poverty in Young People: Sociodemographic Characteristics, Religious and Political Beliefs

M. Carmen Terol-Cantero, Maite Martín-Aragón Gelabert, Borja Costa-López, Javier Manchón López and Carolina Vázquez-Rodríguez ()
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M. Carmen Terol-Cantero: Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health, Miguel Hernández University, 03202 Elche, Spain
Maite Martín-Aragón Gelabert: Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health, Miguel Hernández University, 03202 Elche, Spain
Borja Costa-López: Department of Health Psychology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Alicante, 03690 Alicante, Spain
Javier Manchón López: Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health, Miguel Hernández University, 03202 Elche, Spain
Carolina Vázquez-Rodríguez: Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health, Miguel Hernández University, 03202 Elche, Spain

Social Sciences, 2023, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-16

Abstract: Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon that includes a lack of education, health or housing; it is a relevant factor of social vulnerability that could lead to a situation of social exclusion. According to studies, poverty can be explained by external/social, internal/individual or cultural fatalistic factors. The aim was to confirm the structure of causal attributions of poverty and their relationships with sociodemographic characteristics, as well as religious and political beliefs, in young people. This is a cross-sectional study with a non-probabilistic convenience sample of undergraduate students on different degree courses. A survey was administered to 278 participants (45.4% women) with an average age of 21.59. They were young people studying health science degrees (78.4%) who self-identified as belonging to the lower or middle–lower class (57.2%), without any religious beliefs (56.5%) and as left wing (37.8%; n = 94) or center-left (27.7%; n = 69) in their political orientation. Confirmatory factorial analysis and multiple regression analysis supported the results in previous literature (CFI = 0.90, SRMR = 0.07, RMSEA = 0.06), indicating that there are cultural (C), external (E-S) and internal (I) attribution factors of poverty. The results show moderate relationships between the cultural factor and internal or external factors. The findings show that political affiliation and sex are the most consistent predictors of attributions for poverty.

Keywords: poverty; attributions; beliefs; young people; religious and political (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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