Attributions of causes for unemployment by unemployed workers

• Autor(a) principal: Bendassolli,Pedro F.
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Gondim,Sonia Maria Guedes, Coelho-Lima,Fellipe
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://scielo.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0870-82312015000200002
• topic: Unemployment; Attributing causes; Furnham’s scale

This study investigated the assignment of causes for unemployment by unemployed workers, with a view to analyzing the predictive power of sociodemographic variables for the assignment. A scale of causal attribution of unemployment, originally developed by Furnham, was applied to 376 unemployed people. After confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the scale factors were used in a regression model containing sociodemographic variables as predictors. The CFA results support Furnham’s original three-factor model of unemployment causes (individualistic, societal, and fatalistic; χ2(100)=261.53, p<0.001; χ2/gl=2.61; CFI=0.91, TLI=0.90; RMSEA=0.06). Regression analysis identified significant prediction for only the income variable and individualistic causes factor (β=0.15, p<0.01), the income variable and societal causes factor (β=0.10, p<0.001), and the educational level variable and societal causes factor (β=-0.15, p<0.01). Societal causes presented the highest average score, which was significantly (p<0.001) different than the scores for the other two factors. The study concludes that educational level does not seem to have a linear impact on beliefs regarding the causes for unemployment, nor does gender have a significant influence on these beliefs.