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Adolescents' understanding of poverty and the poor in rural Malaysia

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  • Halik, Murnizam
  • Webley, Paul

Abstract

The aim of this research was to explore Malaysian adolescents' perception of poverty and the poor. The data consisted of 79 semi-structured interviews with school children aged 12-13 and 15-16 years old from rural and urban areas in Sabah, Malaysia. According to them, poverty is mainly economic. Their responses about the causes of poverty can be categorised as individualistic, structural, fatalistic and other factors (such as age, geography, land and encouragement). Older respondents from rural and urban areas gave more individualistic and structural attributions compared to the younger respondents. While they believed that government is most responsible to help the poor, other parties such as the poor, public and NGO's should also work together to alleviate poverty. They suggested that these parties can contribute in terms of donation, infrastructural improvement, education, attitudinal change and job opportunities. Respondents acknowledged that hard work and education are important to improve their standard of living. However, education is regarded as a ticket to seek their fortune elsewhere. These results emphasised the need for the Malay adolescents to learn about not being dependent on the government for employment in order to avoid mass urban migration in the near future.

Suggested Citation

  • Halik, Murnizam & Webley, Paul, 2011. "Adolescents' understanding of poverty and the poor in rural Malaysia," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 231-239, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:32:y:2011:i:2:p:231-239
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    2. Jose Antonio R. Clemente & Mary Angeline A. Daganzo & Allan B. I. Bernardo & Cheila Alexis C. Pangan, 2017. "Filipino Adolescents’ Conceptions of Socioeconomic Mobility: a Consensual Qualitative Research," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 10(1), pages 117-140, March.
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    4. Mia Hakovirta & Johanna Kallio, 2016. "Children’s Perceptions of Poverty," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 9(2), pages 317-334, June.
    5. Esther Yin-Nei Cho & Victor C. W. Wong, 2022. "Children’s Lived Experiences in Poverty in Hong Kong as a High-Income Asian Society," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-24, May.
    6. Pouria Saadollahi & Kuroush Roosta & Ahmad Yaghoubi Farani & Reza Baradaran, 2021. "Explaining the economic, social, and political structure of rural poverty using a mixed exploratory approach: A case study of Shamshir village, Kermanshah province, Iran," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(1), pages 93-109, March.
    7. Viren Swami & Martin J Tovée, 2013. "Resource Security Impacts Men’s Female Breast Size Preferences," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(3), pages 1-7, March.
    8. Saeed Solaymani & Negin Vaghefi & Fatimah Kari, 2019. "The Multidimensional Poverty Measure among Malaysian Employee Provident Fund (EPF) Retirees," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 14(5), pages 1353-1371, November.

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