Scientific journal paper Q1
What do europeans believe to be the causes of poverty? A multilevel analysis of heterogeneity within and between countries
Leonor Pereira da Costa (Costa, L. P.); José G. Dias (Dias, J. G.);
Journal Title
Social Indicators Research
Year (definitive publication)
2015
Language
English
Country
Netherlands
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Web of Science®

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Abstract
People’s explanations for why some individuals are poor are of great importance to a comprehensive study of poverty. This cross-cultural study aims to profile differences and similarities in perceptions of the causes of poverty within and between 28 European Union countries. Multilevel models were estimated to allow two levels of analysis to be studied simultaneously, namely the individual and the country, and a multilevel latent class model was selected with six classes of countries and seven classes of individuals. Despite the generalization of the social explanations of poverty at the individual level, some groups also blame the poor for their situation. Individuals in greater economic difficulty attributed more social causes to poverty than those who were better off financially and socially. At the country level, the most developed countries believe poverty has individualistic and fatalistic causes, whereas the least developed countries explain poverty based on the injustices of society. We found that this methodology permits a deeper and richer analysis than traditional clustering methods as it accounts for different nested levels of analysis simultaneously.
Acknowledgements
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Keywords
Attributions,Europe,Latent class models,Multilevel models,Poverty
  • Mathematics - Natural Sciences
  • Psychology - Social Sciences
  • Sociology - Social Sciences
  • Other Social Sciences - Social Sciences
Funding Records
Funding Reference Funding Entity
PTDC/CS-DEM/108033/2008 Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
UID/PSI/03125/2013 Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
UID/GES/00315/2013 Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

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