It is my opinion that most previous studies investigated urban and rural differences with regard to poverty and welfare. For example, a study conducted in Malawi on the determinants of poverty concluded that the causes of household welfare varied by location (Mukherjee & Benson, 2003: 349). May et al. (2000: 30) also found that there are vast differences in living standards as well as access to basic services between rural and urban areas in South Africa.
In this section I focus on whether urban and rural differences have an influence on how people perceive the causes of poverty. An appraisal of the literature on the impact of residential location on perceptions of poverty revealed that very few studies investigated the dynamics of such a relationship. However, a number of prominent works examined how the distribution of economic resources within a community or the socio-economic conditions within an area impact on people’s attitudes and perceptions of poverty and the poor.
3.11.1 The distribution and access to resources within diverse communities
Gay (2006: 983), for example, examined how the level and distribution of economic resources within diverse areas affect attitudes of African American people toward Latinos. The results indicated that access to economic resources (economic environment) matters more for minority groups than the mere size of the racial or ethnic group. There are two aspects with regard to the economic environment of how African Americans respond to an increasingly diverse urban landscape namely the material condition of the neighbourhoods and the material conditions of group life. If resources and opportunities are not distributed equally across neighbourhoods (for example, some residential areas enjoy better services, safer streets, more open space, and higher home values than others) it may activate negative perceptions among the deprived group. In this regard African American antagonism may be derived from the frustration of the stigma and stress of life in decaying neighbourhoods. Accordingly this antagonism is often directed to out-groups perceived as competitors and in this instance Latinos. I should like to deal with the implications of the findings of this study, by recommending that government authorities put in place community improvement programmes. In other words, services, safer environments, more open space, and higher home values should be a priority for all groups and in particular among the disadvantaged groups of South African. I will return to this discussion in Chapter 7.
The second aspect of the study by Gay (2006: 995) relates to group members’ access to important socio-economic resources such as jobs, education and housing. The basic principle here is that when people perceive themselves to be worse off than other groups within the community it may often lead to negative attitudes towards such a group. For example, if African Americans perceive themselves as secondary in terms of jobs, housing and education this creates feelings of fear and hostility towards the dominant group. The fear and anxiety created by the Latino population which has greater access to these resources (education and housing) may spark African American antagonism. It is important to note that the distinction is between material resources such as services within the immediate environment, and group access to economic resources at macro
level such as jobs, housing and education. It was argued that it is more the “local”
environment in which African Americans live that sparks antagonistic attitudes rather than the ‘macro’ economic resources the dominant group commands that influences African American attitudes.
Branton and Jones (2005: 359) also found that racial and ethnic divisions are shaped or influenced by the socio-economic context within which an individual resides. This study conducted in the United States used the 1990 Census data for every county’s white, African American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American populations to create a measure of county-level racial and ethnic diversity. Socio-economic status was measured as the percentage of college educated individuals within the county, although median income or unemployment was considered as other possible indicators of socio-economic status. The dependent variables included in the study involved white, non-Latinos’ responses to questions such as preferential hiring of African Americans, education quotas, welfare assistance, government assistance, and support for bilingual education. Each of these question items, besides the questions assessing bilingual education, required the respondent to place him or her on an ordinal scale along individual level attributes, individual core values, and contextual attributes. The racial and ethnic diversity as well as the proportion of college educated people within the community were also included in the analysis.
The study by Branton et al. (2005: 359) found that the relationships between attitudes and the context within which a person lives is extremely complex and is conditional on the socio-economic status of the area. More specifically, it was found that racial attitudes depend on whether people live in a racially diverse and high socio-economic context or a racially diverse and low socio-economic context. From an inter-group perspective it was found that competition for resources among racially diverse and low socio-economic conditions lead to increased perceived racism of other groups and policies that would benefit these groups. Conversely, high levels of socio-economic conditions coupled with high levels of diversity lead to more positive relationships and less racial tension. The positive relationships were attributed to a lack of competition for resources. In this study
it was reasoned that there is far less or no negative racial attitudes in areas where socio-economic conditions are good or equally distributed.
I believe that both the studies by Gay (2006: 983) and Branton et al. (2005: 359) support the proposition that socio-economic conditions and resources play an important role in shaping people’s perceptions.