Effects of Socio-economic Strata on Attitude towards Economic Development

The present paper reports the differences in attitudes of people of different socioeconomic groups towards economic development using a newly developed ‘scale of attitude towards economic development’. Through Factor analysis, 13 items were retained and classified in three components, named as responsibility for resource conservation, fulfillment of fundamental needs and equality in public policies. A sample with 294 participants was constituted for the study. Analysis of the data revealed that different socio-economic groups differed significantly with one other on the dimension 1 and 2, but not on the dimension of equality in public policies. All three groups (upper middle, lower middle & lower socio-economic strata) hold more positive attitude towards economic development as compared to upper socio-economic strata. The subgroups did not differ significantly with one another on the third dimension of attitude towards economic development.