Does having children increase environmental concern? Testing parenthood effects with longitudinal data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study

Abstract

Having children is a transformative experience and may change the way people think about the future. Parents invest time, energy and resources to ensure the survival and reproductive success of offspring. Having children may also induce environmental concerns and investments in actions aimed at guaranteeing the quality of natural resources available to offspring. However, there is limited empirical support for this parenthood effect, and little is known about how environmental attitudes and behaviour change over time following the birth of a child. This pre-registered study uses data from the first seven waves (2009-2015) of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study-a longitudinal national probability study of social attitudes, personality, and health outcomes-with multilevel interrupted time series analysis. Respondents' belief in the reality and causes of climate change, sacrifices to standard of living to protect the environment, and changes in daily routine to protect the environment did not change significantly following the birth of a child; and nor were there changes in the underlying trends of attitudes or pre-birth anticipation effects. The study further found no gender differences in the attitudinal effects of childbirth. Additional exploratory analyses suggest that becoming a parent for the first time may increase beliefs in the reality of climate change but does not appear to change other environmental attitudes. Overall, our findings provide little empirical evidence for parenthood effects on environmentalism.

Parents as Agents: Engaging Children in Environmental Literacy in China

“…The third finding from the study showed a close inverse relationship between parents' age and their engagement in knowledge acquisition and consumption-related behaviour. This finding is, however, not entirely supported by other empirical studies in the literature [41][42][43]. Torgler et al (2008), for example, found no visible parental age effect in terms of environmental preferences; nor did the studies by Thomas et al (2018) in the United Kingdom (UK) and Milfont et al (2020) in New Zealand, which showed that parents' age has a significant effect on their environmental behaviour.…”

Connectedness to Nature Does Not Explain the Variation in Physical Activity and Body Composition in Adults and Older People

“…The number of children: Women with more children showed a higher CN. In the literature, we did not identify any studies analysing the relationship between these variables, but some authors [58,59] document a positive association between motherhood and pro-environmental behaviours, expressed in sustainability and environmental protection actions. They may have eventually mediated this relationship, but it is not possible to prove this inference from our results.…”

Water, Waste Material, and Energy as Key Dimensions of Sustainable Management of Early Childhood Eco-Schools: An Environmental Literacy Model Based on Teachers Action-Competencies (ELTAC)

“…From the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals [29,30], the social and educational responsibility that educational institutions have at their initial levels as essential links, together with family actions [31][32][33][34], are called upon to generate and project spaces that favour the creation of a critical citizenry committed to addressing environmental problems [31,32,35,36]. Amongst the priorities that the 2030 Agenda proposes, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 pursues a "Quality Education", specifically in Goal 4.7, which notes that, "By 2030, we must ensure all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, the promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, world citizenship and the appreciation of cultural diversity, and the contribution of culture to sustainable development" [30].…”