Public Support for Sustainable Welfare Compared: Links between Attitudes towards Climate and Welfare Policies

Martin Fritz and Max Koch
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Martin Fritz: Junior Research Group “Mentalities in Flux” (flumen), Institute of Sociology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Humboldtstraße 34, 07743 Jena, Germany
Max Koch: Socialhögskolan, Lund University, Box 23, 22100 Lund, Sweden

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 15, 1-15

Abstract: The emerging concept of sustainable welfare attempts to integrate environmental sustainability and social welfare research. Oriented at a mid-term re-embedding of Western production and consumption norms into planetary limits, it suggests the development of “eco-social” policies in the rich countries. In this theoretical context, this article empirically investigates the relationships between attitudes towards welfare and climate policy in 23 countries. Using 2016 data from the European Social Survey, we explored patterns of synergy between both kinds of policies as well as effects of crowding-out, where support for one kind of policy involves refusing the other. Since previous research addressed the role of welfare states and their institutional foundations in establishing environmentally sustainable societies, we studied how attitudes towards welfare and climate policies differ according to welfare regime affiliation. Additionally, we examined how a range of socio-demographic and political factors such as class, education, income, and political position shape people’s views on welfare and climate policy goals. The results of a multiple correspondence analysis indicate that the simultaneous support of welfare and climate policies follows welfare regime lines in that this support is the highest among social-democratic countries. However, also some conservative and Mediterranean countries score high in this regard. At the individual level, people with a higher education, employees in socio-cultural professions, and voters of moderate left and green parties display the highest mutual support for welfare and climate policies.

Keywords: climate change; climate policy; social policy; sustainable welfare; attitudes; environmental policy; energy preferences; welfare; eco-social policies; European Social Survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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