Educational attainment and environmental concern in China: An instrumental variable approach

Abstract

Formal education is theorised to be an essential vehicle to promote and trigger pro-environmental attitudes and behavioural changes among citizens via the increase of public awareness and concern. However, robust estimations of its causal effect on individuals' concern for the environment are scarce. This study aimed to estimate the effect of educational attainment on environmental concern in China, addressing the problem of endogeneity. China is the largest emitter of CO 2 and faces severe environmental problems due to its rapid process of industrialisation and urbanisation. The findings show that educational attainment has a robust positive causal effect on environmental concern in China. After addressing potential endogeneity issues using an instrumental variable approach, the effect is stronger than a conventional ordinal least squares estimation. Thus, education is a crucial path of action to promote environmental concern and subsequent pro-environmental behaviour in China.

Media Use, Environmental Mediators, and Pro-environmental Behaviors across and within Countries

“…Two aspects of EA are environmental values and environmental concern. While environmental values are general guiding principles that often remain stable over time (Dietz et al, 2005;Milfont & Duckitt, 2010), environmental concern represents people's care or anxiety about environmental issues, which can vary depending on people's knowledge of environmental issues (Olivos et al, 2021), the salience of specific environmental consequences (Jenner, 2012), and the affect associated with an EA (Schultz et al, 2005). Across ages, behavior types, and nationalities, people's EA is often positively associated with, or influences, their behavioral intentions and enacted PEB (e.g., Axelrod & Lehman, 1993;Bilandzic & Kalch, 2022;Kim et al, 2013;Lee et al, 2014).…”

Social psychology of climate change in the Asian context: Introduction to special issue

“…Importantly, moral disengagement is also associated with less guilt responses toward climate change. Another relevant intrapersonal variable that drives environmental concerns is educational attainment (Olivos et al, 2021). Based on nationally representative interview data of household members in China, it is evident that educational attainment can robustly cause higher environmental concerns in the country.…”