Sociological Explanation of the Relationship Between the Socio-Economic Status of Iranian Citizens and Book Consumption

This research aimed to investigate the relationship between the socio-economic status of Iranian citizens and book consumption to determine whether there is a knowledge gap among Iranian citizens or not. The data was collected in a survey method. Information about Iranian citizens has been collected through a structured questionnaire in the form of face-to-face interviews. The statistical population of this research includes all people over 15 years of age living in the city and villages of the country. In this survey, a two-stage sampling was used. The number of samples in this survey is 15,606 people in 31 provinces of the country. The socio-economic status of the citizens was divided into three groups: education level, occupational status, and economic status. Based on the chi-square test and analysis of variance, each of the mentioned groups has a positive and significant relationship with book consumption. Thus, with the increase in the level of education, job status and economic status, book reading among Iranian citizens is on the rise. In addition, with the increase in education level, job status and economic status, people buy more books. There is a relationship between the economic-social status of Iranian citizens and book consumption, and the more the economic-social status of Iranian citizens increases, the more book consumption increases and vice versa. These results show that there is an awareness gap among Iranian citizens and the research results support the hypotheses of the awareness gap theory.