This Blog is About.....

Living in a society where 21.3 percent of the United States population participates in some type of government assistance program each month, it is common for there to be general attitudes regarding the people on welfare programs. Historically, gender has had some impact on shaping welfare policies and shaping opinions on welfare recipients. However, as gender has faded into the background of important issues, we wonder if gender still has an affect on welfare attitudes. Gender as a social construct relates to many social issues and has an impact on multiple political issues. Research shows that gender has a direct impact on humanitarianism, as women tend to be more humanitarian than men. Additionally, women tend to be more compassionate for the poor than men, which reflects ideas of welfare. These findings peaked our interest in exactly what the impact of gender has on welfare attitudes in today’s society. Having an understanding of what the welfare programs provide and whom they provide for is essential for determining why attitudes exist.  With welfare being an important issue in the political realm, it is important to understand how people form their opinions on the matter. Research has found that welfare attitudes are formed around race, social class, gender, and other aspects differentiating the general public. As a research group, we chose to focus on the gendered approach to attitudes regarding welfare. We asked the question: Do gendered attitudes have an effect on how people support welfare policies?  In an effort to answer this question we examined existing literature on the subject and surveyed a small population in order to find the correlation between gender attitudes and welfare program attitudes.