Sex, media, income and economic inequalities beliefs: preliminary results of a survey in Italy

This study analyses the attributions of causality for poverty and wealth in order to better understand people's viewpoint. According to literature, we can detect three main attributions, depending on the return of the condition of poverty (or wealth) to individual, structural and mixed factors. The data we analyzed refer to a 2008 research which has been carried out on 2000 participants in Italy. A Principal Component Analysis has allowed the identification of three components relating to external, internal and fatalistic attributions of the phenomena of poverty and wealth. Following analysis have showed significant relations between attributions and factors like economic status (real or perceived), sex, education level, political orientation and media use.