Collaborative Research: Gender, Politics, and Environmental Concern

This project investigates gender differences in how individuals form attitudes about climate policy across countries. The research helps us understand how societies manage environmental risks. Climatic shifts have been shown to increase both interpersonal and inter-group conflict in every world region, meaning that mitigating climate change is a matter of national security. Understanding how to gain support among those most skeptical in high carbon-emitting economies is key to forming effective policy. This project identifies the material and psychological sources of public support for and resistance to climate mitigation policies around the world. It will develop three new public datasets and associated qualitative materials, encouraging replication and extensions, and contributes to education and research infrastructure. In wealthy nations, women tend to express more concern about climate change than men. Yet the gender gap in climate attitudes does not exist in poorer countries. This project develops a new theory to explain how political elites shape citizens' perceptions of the costs and benefits of climate action in ways that vary across countries (by economic development) and by gender within countries. We test this theory by collecting and analyzing four data sets: (1) a 60-country dataset on major parties' climate policies; (2) a 60-country dataset on media references to the winners and losers of climate action; (3) qualitative case studies in seven countries to investigate the development of climate policy frames; and (4) a survey experiment in five countries to gauge how policies that lessen the perceived costs of climate action differently affect policy support among men and women. This project is co-funded by the Accountable Institutions and Behavior (AIB) and the Security and Preparedness (SAP) programs. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.