The Effects of Regional Characteristics and Policies on Individual Pro-Environmental Behavior in China

Abstract

As the Chinese economy grows, Chinese people’s environmental behavior enormously affects the environment of neighboring countries as well as China. Many studies have related environmental behavior to personal characteristics such as environmental knowledge and attitude or to national policies such as environmental taxes and regulations. Few studies have looked at how regional factors affect residents’ environmental behaviors, particularly for China. This is a substantive gap in the literature regarding the effects of regional governments on resident behavior at a closer distance via different mechanisms than the national government. This paper examines determinants of individual pro-environmental behavior (PEB) in terms of regional attributes as well as personal characteristics in China. For this purpose, we applied a multi-level regression model that regresses the degree of PEB on both individual and regional level factors, using Chinese General Social Survey data and the China Environment Yearbook data for the year 2010. The analysis shows that environmental attitude, willingness to pay for the environment, objective and subjective environmental knowledge, and environmental risk perception all promote PEB at the individual level. These results are in line with the existing literature on environmental behavior. In addition, at the regional level, environmental budgets, administrative enforcement, and economic development have positive impacts on resident PEB, while environmental pollution has a negative effect. Specifically, the levels of regional economic development and administrative enforcement not only directly affect behavior, but also indirectly affect behavior by controlling the influence of individual level variables. This means that the relationships between individual level variables and environmental behavior can be changed by regional contextual factors. These results suggest that regional government efforts for the environment can effectively promote PEB.

Internet use and pro-environmental behavior: Evidence from China

“…Specifically, attitude is related to the positive or negative feelings of an individual. Extant literature has found that environmental attitude, willingness to pay for the environment, and environmental risk perception can promote individuals’ pro-environmental behavior [ 31 ]. Zhang et al [ 32 ] finds that in China, internet use makes people significantly less satisfied with the environmental quality and their living conditions.…”

Pro-Environmental Behaviors of Generation Z in the Context of the Concept of Homo Socio-Oeconomicus

“…The aim of the development of human environmental awareness is to shape behaviors aimed at environmental protection, both in the individual dimension and the broader social context. In recent decades, a lot of research has been done to identify factors influencing pro-environmental behavior [18][19][20][21]. Factors other than environmental knowledge were gradually introduced to explain the behavior of individuals towards the environment [22].…”

Citizen Environmental Behavior From the Perspective of Psychological Distance Based on a Visual Analysis of Bibliometrics and Scientific Knowledge Mapping

“…After infancy, research on citizen environmental behavior ushered in a period of steady development and began to focus on the motivation behind citizen environmental behavior from the perspective of psychological distance (Hong and Park, 2018;Maiella et al, 2020). Climate change caused by accelerating urbanization poses a serious threat to human health development (Carmi and Kimhi, 2015).…”