PERCEIVED CAUSES OF POVERTY IN THE CONTEXT OF OBJECTIVE POVERTY, SUBJECTIVE POVERTY AND SELECTED SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES

Previous research on the perceived causes of poverty has been carried out in the field of sociology (Strapcová, 2005) as well as social psychology (Nasser & Abouchedid, 2001). The present study has two objectives. The first one was to determine whether there are statistically significant differences in the individualistic, structural and fatalistic perceived causes of poverty between the objectively poor and objectively non-poor as well as between the subjectively poor and subjectively non-poor. Secondly, it was to identify the predictors of the individualistic, structural and fatalistic perceived causes of poverty among selected variables including gender, age, marital status, employment status, education, objective poverty and subjective poverty. Both a Welch t-test and Mann-Whitney U test were used to verify the first goal of the study. For the second goal, a multiple hierarchical linear regression analysis stepwise method was used. The findings provide insight into the widely up to now unexplored issue of perceived causes of poverty in Slovakia. Future research on the perceived causes of poverty among the poor could focus on self-assignment of the participant to either the group of the poor or non-poor, distinguish between one's own poverty and the poverty of others and include other variables such as ethnicity, religion, belief in a just world as well as life satisfaction.