Title

Rural Attitudes toward Government Benefit Programs

Journal Title

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

Publication Date

2018

Abstract

This study explores rural Midwestern attitudes (N = 126) toward 21 government benefit programs. Findings indicated that there were substantial differences between male and female respondents with male respondents believing that means-tested government benefits were too generous by almost a full standard deviation (d = .90) in comparison with female respondents. Entitlement programs were also deemed too generous, but by a lesser effect (d = .67). No gender differences were noted for farm programs. Linear regression explained 23.3% of the variance in attitudes toward mean-tested programs, 20.8% for entitlement programs, but only 8.1% for farm-related programs. Findings are interpreted to suggest that rural males’ psychological reactance to threats to farm autonomy may undergird male antipathy to government benefit programs, but that rural females may represent a potential constituency supportive of more socially just and compassionate social welfare programs.

Keywords

social welfare, rural attitudes, gender differences

Document Type

Article

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences | Social Work

Volume

10

Issue

1

First Page

1

Last Page

10

Rights

The following uses are always permitted to the author(s) and do not require further permission from Murray State's Digital Commons provided the author does not alter the format or content of the articles, including the copyright notification: Posting of the article on the internet as part of a non-commercial open access institutional repository or other non-commercial open access publication site affiliated with the author(s)'s place of employment.

Comments

Previously published at Murray State University:
https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/crsw/vol10/iss1/2/

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