Attributions of Poverty: Analyzing Compound Attribution

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the poverty attribution of people in Japan. Some previous studies have argued that various variables, including demographics, socio-economic status, and social awareness, correlate with whether people attribute poverty to individual willpower, social unfairness, individual unluckiness, or inevitable features of society. However, it is also asserted that people’s belief on the course of poverty has a complex and compound nature: people blame individuals and society at the same time. This study investigates such compound attribution using multiple answers of poverty attribution. The analysis shows that people who tend to blame society do not always privilege individuals and vice versa. As the robustness of social policies is partially based on people’s awareness, this result can be referred to when social policies are developed.