Journal Article

The Varied Influence of SES on Environmental Concern

Pampel, Fred C.

2014

Overview

Objective. Cross-national studies have found positive relationships of socioeconomic status (SES) with environmental concern at the individual level but have not systematically examined how the relationships may differ across nations. Such comparisons have relevance to identifying the generality of theories of postmaterialism, affluence, and global environmentalism. Methods. This study specifies how the individual-level influence of SES varies across national contexts and tests predictions using four waves of the World Values Survey on up to 96 nations. Results. The results show that SES is associated only weakly with environmental concern in lower income nations with poor environmental conditions but is associated strongly and positively in higher income nations with better environmental conditions. Conclusion. SES has a contingent relationship with environmental concern such that the global environmentalism theory receives support for lower income nations, while the postmaterialism and affluence theories receive support for higher income nations.

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Ltd,Wiley (Variant),Wiley
• Subject: Affluence / Affluent societies / Attitudes / Conceptualization / Correlation / Cross cultural studies / Developing countries / Environmental Attitudes / Environmental Conditions / Environmental perception / Environmental problems / Environmental Studies / Environmentalism / Human ecology and demography / Income / Income distribution / Individual differences / International comparisons / LDCs / Low Income Groups / Materialism / Post-materialism / Postmaterialism / Prediction / Socioeconomic factors / Socioeconomic Status / Socioeconomics / Sociology / Theory / Values