Explanations of Unemployment: An Eight-Country Comparison

Explanations of unemployment as non-expert beliefs or lay theories, were originally described by Furnham (1982) to follow three axes: individualistic, societal, and fatalistic. Through a revised 19-item version (EoU-R), comprising original and new items with its structure closely resembling the original one we studied 1,689 participants from eight countries (Brazil, United Kingdom, Greece, Poland, USA, Romania, Turkey, and Spain). Internal consistency for a derived three-factor structure (Individualistic, Fatalistic, Societal-Educational) was reached and cross-cultural factor equivalence was supported across countries through covariance structure analysis. The composite EoU-R dimension scores were compared across countries, genders, and employment status groups with the largest differences across countries found for the Individualistic factor. Females were found to explain unemployment in terms of Societal-Educational explanations more than males and some interesting interactions also emerged. The Revised Explanations of Unemployment scale can be used cross-culturally and for within cultures comparisons and can prove useful for counseling.