Poverty and Prejudice: Evidence From Myanmar
Constant Courtin et al.
Abstract
Does poverty drive prejudice? We study this question in Myanmar, a deeply divided society where anti-Muslim sentiment surged during a partial democratic transition in the mid-2010s. Drawing on theories of economic competition and scapegoating, we test whether material hardship predicts exclusionary attitudes using new data from a nationally representative survey of 22,000 adults belonging to the majority Buddhist group. We find a large and consistent association: both poorer individuals and poorer townships are more likely to express Islamophobia. This relationship persists when leveraging a plausibly exogenous income shock caused by severe flooding. Poverty is more predictive of anti-Muslim sentiment than key alternative explanations for intergroup animus. It also correlates with hostility toward other minorities (Hindus and Indians), indicating that poverty is tied to a more general tendency to denigrate outgroups. Our findings shed light on the economic foundations of polarized social preferences and may help identify communities at heightened risk of ethnoreligious conflict.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.