Understanding the Perceived Causes of Poverty and Quality of Life: A Study of Rourkela City

Abstract

Poverty is a global issue and remains a subject of much concern to observers and researchers a like. More importantly, how people perceive the causes of poverty in the context of culture and value system in which they live, have a great impact on poverty and Quality of Life(QoL). Very often poverty is comprehended from an outsider position with income measures being the common method of appraisal, and less so from an insider position. In this context,it is important to understand the perception of the cause of poverty and QoL especially among poorer section of population. The aims of the study are six-fold: first, to provide an insight into whether poverty is viewed in structural, individualistic and fatalistic dimensions, or a combination of all three; second, to explore the difference between the perceptions of the causes of poverty between the poor and the non-poor; third, to assess the difference in the QoL between the poor and the non-poor; fourth, to understand how various socio-economic and demographic variables influence perceptions of the causes of poverty and QoL; fifth, to examine how the perception of the causes of poverty influences the QoL and the correlation between them; and finally, to make an assessment of the perception of poor and non-poor towards income, children and family.A cross-sectional survey using multi-stage random sampling procedure was conducted among the poor and non-poor of Rourkela aged between 18 and 60 years. The targeted sample size was 700 (Poor=500; Non poor=200). Feagin’s (1972) perception’s scale of poverty was used to measure the perceived cause of poverty. The QoL of the respondents was measured through WHOQOL-BREF. Different statistical tools such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA), correlation and regression have been used to address above objectives.Besides, above quantitative techniques, qualitative information was also inferred to address few of the objectives. The present study constructed nine factors of perception of the causes of poverty through PCA, which confirmed the three broad theoretical explanation of the perception of the causes of poverty; Individualistic, Structural and Fatalistic perspectives.It was found that the poor perceive bad fate, bad luck or misfortunes as the cause of poverty, whereas, the non-poor perceive poverty is due to lack of ability, mismanagement of the available resources or the wastage of money. Through WHOQOL-BREF, the Overall QoL, the Overall health, and the QoL in other four domains (physical, psychological,social relationship and environment) were assessed. Results suggest that the poor are well at Environmental QoL as compared to the non-poor. The Fatalistic factor of the cause of poverty influences the QoL the most.