Social support in the working poor

Abstract

Introduction: There are many groups of people who are threatened by poverty. One of these groups is relatively new - the working poor. These people work but their income is still below the poverty level. Fortunately, in the Czech Republic, the number of such people is relatively low - approximately 4%. However, poverty can lead to involuntary social exclusion. Social support can help avoid such exclusion. Social support is influenced by the quality of family relationships, relationships with neighbours and the creation of social networks. Social support helps to solve difficult situations on one’s own. Methods: The research was carried out using quantitative strategy. We used the standardized MOS questionnaire for social support for the collection of data. The processing and subsequent statistical analysis were carried out using the IBM SPSS Statistics 24 programme. The sample group included the working poor from South Bohemia. Results: We found that social support in this group of people was not very large; it is average. As we assumed, the highest score in social support was achieved regarding the area of family/love. Age, education and gender were not statistically significant. Conclusions: Our research showed that most working poor respondents did not have a high level of social support but a maximum average. The highest level of social support was achieved in families, which many studies state is the most important social support during the management of difficult situations. We believe that the development of the relationships with neighbours and the whole community could contribute to a higher level of social support in the region. We see a large contribution in community work.