►http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/node/598 The myth of the happy poor
►http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/images/barford-anna.jpg
Submitted by Kathryn Busby on 27 July 2011
When researcher Anna Barford [external link] was running discussion groups for her PhD research on international attitudes to inequality, she found that the idea of “the happy poor” frequently cropped up.
Anna Barford
“Some suppose the poor to be happy because they are less materialistic and more focused on friendship. This argument is sometimes extended to imply that poverty even makes people happy..... Denying that inequality is problematic, based on happiness being important and the poor being happy, offers a pretext for not thinking more deeply about the impacts of inequality.” - The Myth of the Happy Poor [http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/docs/happy-myth-anna-barford.pdf]