SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF CITATIONS REGARDING THE CAUSES OF POVERTY

Abstract

Poverty and wealth have existed in the historical process. With the development of the property
relationship, the poor and rich distinction between those who own and those who do not have
property is revealed. In general, poverty is assessed according to individuals and their income level,
consumption habits and the situation of having a property. On the other hand, experience of poverty
varies depending on time and place, except for having a certain ownership. People experience a
perception process where they evaluate their own situation and define poverty with their own
criteria and determine the material and moral boundaries of what they want to have.
Apart from being a purely biological organism with various kinds of diseases, man is considered as
a social entity. In this study, although poverty is considered as the “need” of people for various
goods, the focus will be on “situations” that are the cause of poverty. These situations will first be
put forward with the Causal Citations for Poverty Scale (YINA). Therefore, in this study, it is aimed
to determine the citations made by people with various socio-demographic structure regarding
poverty. To this end, a questionnaire was prepared to reveal the socio-demographic structure and
poverty citations. A total of 232 people who were reached with the easy sampling method were
surveyed. The data obtained were analyzed using the SPSS program.
The YINA scale, which has a validity and reliability analysis, offers three dimensions related to
poverty: structural, individualist and fatalistic / familial. According to the data obtained from the
research, the participants included in the sample mostly make structural references as the cause of
poverty. While fatalistic / familial citations are seen as a moderate cause of poverty, individual
citations are found to be seen as a minor cause of poverty.