How Does the Content of Deservingness Criteria Differ for More and Less Deserving Target Groups? An Analysis of Polish Online Debates on Refugees and Families with Children

Bibliographic Data

ID2116334
AuthorsMaria Thei (0000-0002-2039-6319, University of Warsaw, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume52
Issue4
Pages962-980
Publication date2023-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Social Policy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-2794 • E-ISSN: 1469-7823
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0047279422000058
OpenAlexW4283394765
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited30

The article analyses opinions on deservingness expressed by social media users in debates about social welfare granted to refugees and families with dependent children in Poland. The article's focus is on the content of deservingness criteria. This term describes the variety of factual and specific expectations applied to beneficiaries within each of the deservingness criteria. Qualitative content analysis of Facebook comments led to the finding that when users evaluate beneficiaries' deservingness, they take into account their control over their own neediness, attitude, reciprocity in relation to the general population, identity and the level of need. However, within each of these deservingness criteria there is a plenitude of diverse, specific, often contradictory concepts of what exactly the sign of (un)deservingness is. The study shows that in the case of refugees, a group deemed less deserving, those content categories are more demanding and exclusive. In particular, the content of the need category proved broad and biased toward favouring a generally 'more deserving' group. The understanding of families' need was often based on collective relative deprivation and the assumption that those who are needy have been neglected in previous social welfare programs, whereas refugees' 'real need' was often a logically empty category

Content analysis · Economic growth · Economics · Identity (music) · Political science · Population · Reciprocity (cultural anthropology) · Refugee · Social Assistance · Social science · Sociology · Welfare · Law · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology · Social Policy and Reform Studies · Social Psychology

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